Arnolds Auziņš was born on November 29, 1931 in the Talsi District. In 1977 he became the literary editor of the magazine Draugs, and in 1991, retired to focus on his own creative work. He is a member of the Writers 'Union and the Journalists' Union of Latvia. His first poem was published in 1957. He received first prize in the Radio Fairy Tale Competition in 1966 and in a competition for 'Avots' magazine in 1980. His first collection of poems "The Smile" came out in 1967. He has worked in different genres and written for both children and adults. His poems have been translated into English, Russian, Lithuanian, Georgian, Finnish and Bulgarian. His wife Laimdota is a retired teacher. They have two sons and daughters, and are proud of their five grandchildren. Uldis Balodis enjoys translating a wide variety of literary genres, both fiction and non-fiction, including literature for adults as well as books written for young people. He has translated mysteries, children’s stories, and scientific articles, and hopes to try his hand at poetry translation in the near future. Uldis’s interest in language has followed him throughout his life. He holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and has studied over 30 languages including Navajo, Sanskrit, and Livonian. He grew up in Arizona, a descendant of the World War II Latvian refugee community in the United States, and has native proficiency in Latvian and English along with a deep understanding of the nuances individual words and turns of phrase hold in both languages. He enjoys the challenge of finding a way to re-express the essence of meaning that is found in original Latvian texts into English. Uldis is also an avid photographer and enjoys telling the story of the people and places he has encountered not only through words, but also through images. Kate Wakeling is a poet and musicologist. Her debut poetry collection for children, Moon Juice, won the CLiPPA in 2017 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Her second collection, Cloud Soup, was shortlisted for the CLiPPA in 2022 and named a book of the month in the Guardian and the Scotsman. A pamphlet of Kate’s poetry for adults, The Rainbow Faults, is published by The Rialto. Kate studied music at Cambridge University and holds a PhD in Balinese gamelan music from SOAS.
