Hélène Cardona is a poet, translator, and actor, the recipient of over 20 honors and awards, including the Best Book and International Book Awards, Naji Naaman Literary Prize, Hemingway Grant, and fellowships from the Goethe-Institut and Andalucía International University. She authored three collections: Life in Suspension, Dreaming My Animal Selves, The Astonished Universe, and four translations: José Manuel Cardona’s Birnam Wood, Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac’s Beyond Elsewhere, Dorianne Laux’s Ce que nous portons, Walt Whit- man’s Civil War Writings for WhitmanWeb. Her work has been translated into sixteen languages. Fluent in six languag- es, she holds an MA in American Literature from the Sor- bonne, worked as a translator/interpreter for the Canadian Embassy, and taught at Hamilton College and LMU. Acting credits include Chocolat, Ford V. Ferrari, Star Trek: Discovery, The Romanoffs, The Hundred-Foot Journey, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Happy Feet 2 and Serendipity, among many others. She co-produced the award-winning documentary Femme.