Ngo Tu Lap (Ngô Tự Lập) has published three collections of poetry and five books of fiction, five books of essays, and many translations from Russian, French, and English. He has won seven prizes for his writing, which has been translated into English, French, German, Swedish, Czech, and Thai. A bilingual edition of his poems, Black Stars (Milkweed), was co-translated with Martha Collins. A member of the Union of Vietnamese Writers, he is now the editor of the Journal of Science (Vietnam National University).

Martha Collins is the author of the forthcoming Day Unto Day (Milkweed), as well as White Papers (Pittsburgh), Blue Front (Graywolf), and four earlier collections of poems. She has also co-translated three volumes of Vietnamese poetry, most recently Black Stars by Ngo Tu Lap (Milkweed, with the author). Pauline Delaney Professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin until 2007, she is currently editor-at-large for FIELD magazine. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.