Olga Leticia Cruz-Zelaya is a Honduran-American poet whose passions include human rights, the preservation of nature, and the welfare of children. After earning a degree in criminal law at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, Olga emigrated to the United States of America from Honduras in 1993. Olga then earned a Master of Arts Degree in Latino Literature from Ohio University, and was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s (UTSA) Breaking Boundaries / Derrumbando Fronteras: Summer Institute for the Integration of Mexican American and Latina/o Literature and Culture into the Secondary Curriculum. While in San Antonio, Olga produced new work inspired by her experience there.

Louis Mendoza, Ph.D., Professor of Literature and Chair of the Department of Chicano Studies at the University of Minnesota opines that, “In poems such as “Mi Raices,” “Niños del Basurero,” “Viajeros”, and “Sufridas Miradas”, Olga excavates in language rich with imagery and passion her love of the mother land and her compatriots. More than just homages to the past, these lyrical poems are meditations on the landscape and on the people, and have a unique capacity to express both nostalgia and immediacy simultaneously. Her poetics are that of a songstress, but also that of a witness and agent of understanding: in other words, the fulfillment of art’s best purpose.”