Zviad Ratiani is from Tbilisi, Georgia and is the author of five books of poetry. He's been awarded the SABA, Georgia’s top poetry prize (2010), the Georgian Writer's Union yearly prize for the best poetry publication of the year (1995, 1997), the Bestseller Literary Prize for the poem "Fathers" (1999), the Goethe Institute Prize for Translation for a book of Paul Celan's poetry (1999), and the Vazha Pshavela Prize for his book, Roads and Days (2005). His poems have been translated and published in nine languages.

Timothy Kercher has spent the last six years overseas—four years in Georgia and two in Ukraine—and is now moving back to his home in Dolores, Colorado. He continues to translate contemporary poetry from the Republic of Georgia. He is a high school English teacher and has worked in five countries overseas—Mongolia, Mexico, and Bosnia being the others. His poems and translations have recently appeared or are forthcoming in a number of recent publications, including Crazyhorse, Versal, Plume, upstreet, Bateau, The Minnesota Review and others.