Saudade for Being a Bug

Martha Riva Palacio Obón is a Mexican sound artist and author of novels, poetry, and stories for children and adults. She won the 2014 Premio Hispanoamericano de Poesía para Niños for her illustrated book of poems  Lunática (Fonda de Cultura Económica, 2015) and the 2011 El Premio de Literature Infantil El Barco de Vapor for her middle-grade novel Las sirenas sueñan con trilobites (Ediciones SM, 2011), published in English as Secrets We Tell the Sea (Bloomsbury, 2023). Her short prose has been published in the New England Review, ANMLY, and Strange Horizons, and she is currently working on a collection of personal essays. Obón is a member of Mexico’s Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte.

Will Morningstar is a book editor and translator whose work has appeared in journals such as the New England Review, ANMLY, Two Lines, Latin American Literature Today, and Strange Horizons. His translation of Martha Riva Palacio Obón’s essay “How to Draw a Lichen (with Help from the Spirits)” appears in the 2025 edition of Deep Vellum’s Best Literary Translations anthology. His translation, with Samantha Schnee, of Argentine writer Mariana Travacio’s novel All That Dies in April (Quebrada, Tusquets, 2022) is forthcoming from World Editions in fall 2025. In 2024, Morningstar founded Boston-based Diptych Press, a new publisher of literature from around the world.