João Pedro Mésseder was born in OPorto in 1957. Signing with his first name (José António Gomes) he is a professor of higher education, researcher and critic with several studies published on contemporary Portuguese literature and writing for childhood and youth.

Main books of poetry: The Incurable City (Caminho, 1999); A Little Red Light (Alma Azul, 2000), 1st Prize of the 5th Literary Contest of the Teachers' Union of the Central Region; Fissura (Caminho, 2000), Literary Prize Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho de Poesia; Youkali's Elucidation followed by Alphabetical Order (Caminho, 2006); Meridionais (Deriva, 2007); Far away, the Fire (Página a Página, 2015); The Disease of Colors followed by Isles of God (Poética, 2016). He also published aphoristic writing, such as Sound Guides and Other Abrasives (Deriva, 2010), and very brief narratives: Tales of the Last Quarter (Deriva, 2014). His Little Book of Things (Caminho, 2012, poetry) was honored with the Bissaya Barreto Prize for Children's Literature 2012. Some of its thirty books of poems and short stories for children and young people have also received public honors.

Consciousness of the inscription in a Mediterranean cultural space, positioning in relation to certain historically inscribed human questions, reflection on the word and its powers and taste for brevity are some of the traces of this author's poetics.