Alisa Velaj was born in Albania, in 1982. She holds a Ph.D. in Albanian Literature, which subjects she has been teaching at the university level while writing poetry, prose, essays, articles, and research studies. Alisa was shortlisted for the Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in 2014. Her poems have so far been translated into English, Portuguese, Romanian, Turkish, and Swedish, as well as published in over a hundred international literary magazines. Her poetry collection, With No Sweat At All, will be published this year by Cervana Barva Press (USA), while Dreams was recently published by Cyberwit Press (India). Both collections are masterfully translated into English by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj.