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Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and established in the UK since 1999.

As an author

Her most recent publication is Flint (poetry, Contraband Books, 2022).

She has published (in Mexico) the novels Ciudad doliente de Dios, inspired by William Blake’s Prophetic Poems (Alfaguara-Penguin/Random House-UNAM); La sed (Colibrí), Puente del cielo (Random House-Mondadori), and Odio (LunArena); the books of short stories Cuentos de fantasmas y otras mentrias (Aldus)and Con tu corazón y otros cuentos (Dirección General de Publicaciones FONCA); the books of poetry Sombra abierta (Bellas Artes, Jalisco), Pronunciación del deseo (de cara al mar) (UNAM, col. El Ala del Tigre), Hacia la luz (Ditoria), Estaciones (Colibrí), Una rosa (Ediciones sin nombre), and Nieve, Agua (Mano Santa Editores), and the prose piece El libro, la ciudad (Ditoria).

She has been a contributor to over 30 newspapers and magazines in Mexico, the UK and other countries, including Mexican major publications such as Vuelta, La Jornada, Nexos, Letras Libres and Confabulario (cultural supplement of El Universal); she writes a monthly column for Literal Magazine, and until April 2017 wrote a fortnightly column (“Lo que contemplas”) for Laberinto, cultural supplement of newspaper Milenio. In the UK she has been a contributor to Poetry London, Modern Poetry in Translationand Wormwood. Her work has also appeared in the European Review Versopolis and in theReview. Literature and Arts of the Americas, and has been included in more than a dozen anthologies in Mexico, the UK, Spain, Italy, Argentina and Slovenia, the most recent one being A Miscellany of Death and Folly (Egaeus Press). In 1997 she was shortlisted in the international competition “La sonrisa vertical” (Tusquets) with her novel Puente del cielo.

Author of dozens of song lyrics for the popular Mexican rock band Santa Sabina and of the libretto for a couple of theatrical-musical shows in Mexico with the Choir of the University of el Claustro de Sor Juana (El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat and Música Divina, Humanas Letras, directed by Rita Guerrero), as well as of the cabaret show Monólogo con farol; she also wrote the libretto for Phantom Palace, chamber opera by Mexican composer Hilda Paredes commissioned by the English National Opera. She wrote scripts for the Mexican TV program Hora Marcada.

Grants and Scholarships

2022-(to end in 2025) Member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte, Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico

2009-2011       Member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte, Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico

2003                Arts Council London

1998                Resident at Ledig House, International Writers Colony, in

                        Ghent, New York.

1994-1995       Centro Mexicano de Escritores, Mexico.

1991-1992       Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico.

She has been invited to dozens of literary festivals, conferences and venues, including the Conference of Poets of the Latin World; the Conference on the Anniversary of the birth of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; the International Book Fair in the city of La Paz, Bolivia; Trinity College, Dublin; the University of Cork and the National Irish University at Galway; the Centre Culturel de Mexique in Paris, theInstituto Cervantes in Manchester and London, theMonterrey International Writers Conference;theBlake Society; King’s College Arts and Humanities Festival; the Wellcome Trust; the Enemies Project with the London Book Fair, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Mexico City’s Zócalo International Book Fair, Lirikonfest, Poetry Festival in Slovenia, Guadalajara’s International Book Fair and the International Book Fair at Mexico City’s Palacio de Minería.

As a translator

Member of the Society of Author’s Translators Association and Asetrad. She was a member of ITI as well for several years. She has been a self-employed translator from English into Spanish and Spanish into English for over 35 years, and has some experience translating from French into Spanish.

Translator of Walter de la Mare’s Seaton’s Aunt, published in 2023 by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil, 2020, UNAM, and of the award winning book Algae in an Aerial Sea (into English, Pre-Textos, Spain, 2022), by Spanish poet Iván González. She translated the collection of British short stories Sombra del árbol de la noche, and the anthology of contemporary British poetry Debajo la hierba. Arriba la bóveda del cielo, compiled and edited by her. Both books were commissioned for the UK-Mexico Dual Year 2015 by Mexico City’s Zócalo International Book Fair, where they were launched in October 2015.

She has also translated the books Wolf Hollow, by Lauren Wolk (Santillana),  Hands in Water(poetry) by Martha Black Jordan published by El Tucán de Virginia, and George Steiner’s On Difficulty and Other Essays (Fondo de Cultura Econmica). In 2017shefinished the translation into English of the book of poetry The Cycle of Evaporation, by Spanish poet Álvaro García. She’s currently working on the translation into Spanish of a selection of poems by British poet David Harsent for Trilce. She recently translated Mexican poet Guillermo Fernández for Modern Poetry in Translation. Her translation of Walter de la Mare’s ‘Seaton’s Aunt’ will be published by the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2023.

Her work includes literary translations for several major Mexican newspapers and journals of authors such as Peter Ackroyd, Charles Dickens, Iain Sinclair, Jack London, Arthur Conan Doyle, poet Sean O’Brien, Maitreyabandhu and David Harsent. She has also translated poetry by Pascale Petit and excerpts of Margaret Drabble’s fiction for the International Festival of Literature in Tampico, Mexico, and poems by Sasha Dugdale.

She has a vast experience in the translation of arts-related audio-guides and catalogues. Her work has been used by major museums such as the Guggenheim and Metropolitan museums in New York, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Picasso Foundation’s Casa Natal Museum, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Hampton Court, the Tate Britain, Tate Modern, National Gallery and INIVA in the UK, among others. She has worked as an interpreter for INIVA and the Serpentine Gallery in London. She’s the translator, among other art-related publications, of the texts accompanying Francisco Zúñiga’s Catalogue Raisonné by master lithographer Andrew Vlady (Zúñiga Laborde Foundation); Matter and Discourse of Faith, bilingual edition of a retrospective catalogue of Mexican painter Roberto Rébora’s work, published by Turner, and of Robert Storr’s September, about Gerhard Ricther’s work, for Heni Publishing.

Teaching

She has led several literary workshops in Mexico and the UK, was lecturer of Media and Culture at the ITESO University in Guadalajara, Mexico, and lecturer of British Literature at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana. She taught literature at the Escuela Dinámica de Escritores in Mexico City, has been a tutor for the online creative writing platform Central de Escritura, as well as for Escritoras Mexicanas, and taught literary translation and literature at the Instituto Cervantes in London for eight years. In 2020 she taught an online course on William Blake for the Colegio de San Ildefonso’s Cátedra Octavio Paz (Mexico), and in 2021 she led the course “William Blake for Innocents: an Introduction” in Swedenborg House, London. She has also given talks on Arthur Machen and Mary Shelley for the Casa Universitaria del Libro, National Autonomous University of Mexico. In 2022 she will lead a course on Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood for the Colegio de San Ildefonso’s Cátedra Octavio Paz.

Other experience

From 1983 to 1987 she produced and presented “Dimensión del rock”, a radio program for Radio Universidad de Guadalajara. In the 1980s she also worked as assistant for the Carlos Ashida and Magritte art galleries in Guadalajara, Mexico. In the 1990s she coordinated, along with a vast group of artists, musicians and students, massive concerts and other public events in support of indigenous communities in Mexico.

From 2013 to January 2015 she was the Secretary of the Blake Society, for which she worked as a Trustee since 2011. She worked in the organisation of several events and was co-leader of the fund-raising appeal to acquire William Blake’s Cottage in Felpham and turn it into a centre for creation.

From 2015 to 2018 she was a member of the Board of Trustees of Modern Poetry in Translation. She’s a member of the Society of Authors and the Royal Society of Literature.

She was co-curator, along with artist Pato Bosich, of the exhibition “Beyond the Shadow of the Ship” for the Three Highgate Gallery in London (December 2022-2023), around Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.

Editorial Experience

For over 30 years she has done freelance proofreading, translation, copy-editing, manuscript assessment and writing of book flaps for the following publications and institutions:

Publishing department of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City, including editorial work for magazine Casa del Tiempo.

Milenio and Viceversa monthly magazines (editorial coordinator).

Publishing houses Cal y Arena, Clío, Era, Fondo de Cultura Económica and Planeta (some of the major publishing houses in Mexico).

McGraw Hill (translation and proofreading).   

Festival Internacional Cervantino.

The Harvill Press (reader reports).

Heni Publishing, London.

PEN translates (assessment of manuscripts).

She was research assistant for the translation of Julia Kristeva’s Thérese Mon Amour into English by Lorna Scott-Fox.