Nisrine Mbarki Ben Ayad (she/her), the Poet Laureate of the Netherlands (2026–2027), is an Amsterdam based Dutch Moroccan versatile multilingual writer, poet, literary translator, and programmer.

Mona Kareem is a poet, translator, and literary scholar. She is the author of four poetry collections, selections from which were published in English as I Will Not Fold These Maps. Her translations include Ra'ad Abdul Qadir's Except for This Unseen Thread, Octavia Butler's Kindred, and Ashraf Fayadh's Instructions Within. She teaches Arabic literature at Washington University in St Louis.