Duration: 120 minutes
Keynote: Margarita Engle

Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of verse books such as The Surrender Tree, Enchanted Air, Forest World, and Drum Dream Girl. Awards include the NSK Neustadt Prize, three Astrid Lindgren Award Nominations, a Newbery Honor, multiple Pura Belpré, Walter, Américas, Jane Addams, and International Latino Book Awards and Honors, as well as the Charlotte Zolotow, PEN USA, Golden Kite, Green Earth, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Arnold Adoff , and Claudia Lewis Awards, among others. Margarita served as the 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Her most recent books include With a Star in My Hand, Dreams From Many Rivers, and Dancing Hands. Forthcoming books include Your Heart, My Sky, and A Song of Frutas. Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. She studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing, and now lives in central California with her husband.

Featuring: Candlewick Press, LA Librería, Spanish Publishers, Lorito Books, Lectorum Publications,