University of Kwazulu-Natal

Lone Star Listens Guadalupe Garcia Mccall Translates The Wonder Of The

Bonisiwe Shabane
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lone star listens guadalupe garcia mccall translates the wonder of the

Award-winning Latina Young Adult author Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s fourth book, All the Stars Denied, will be published in May 2018, making spring quite busy for the San Antonio–area author — as she’ll also be... Born in Mexico, McCall immigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was six and grew up in Eagle Pass, Texas. Lone Star Lit caught up with McCall over the weekend via email and learned about her life of two cultures, her path to publishing, and the joy of being honored for her work. LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: You were born in Mexico, and then your family moved to Eagle Pass, Texas, when you were six. How would you describe those early days, and what was it like growing up in Eagle Pass?

GUADALUPE GARCIA McCALL: Those early days were filled with all kinds of sensory images; they echoed my emotions. En los estados unidos, the sights and sounds of children wearing such nice clothes and speaking in a crisp, clear language blended in with the smell of fried chicken, an unknown yet intriguing aroma... That scent filtered into the bus and mingled with the sound of my sweaty legs slipping around on the plastic seats on hot summer days. I was so young, that my little heart ached with fear and hope and love and hate. I was afraid of not learning “the English,” as my father called it, but I was also full of the hope that I saw in my mother’s eyes when she registered my sister Alicia... I loved my parents and siblings, but I hated being separated from my guelita and in Mexico.

At first, I had a hard time in school because I was mistakenly put in a monolingual class. After a few weeks, the school called a meeting with my parents and it was discovered that I was a Spanish speaker and a recent immigrant, and I needed to go to Ms. Nuñez’s class. Everything was good after that. The bilingual program was so strong and I was very studious, so I flourished in school. My father introduced me to writing when we still lived in Mexico, but he didn’t do it in the traditional way.

He sat me on his lap every weekend and made drawings out of letters and numbers. Every curl, every swirl of a letter became a part of a little animalito or caricatura that jumped off the pages as he drew them. In his carpenter’s hands, numbers and letters became little creatures with attitude and voices and snarls and growls. I was at once astonished and delighted by them. “The S is a serpiente, sitting up on its tail,” he said, and he gave her a tiny forked tongue to smell out mice in the field. The C became a tiny cochineal bug, all curled up in her cocoon for the winter, asleep on a cactus pad.

The number 2 became a beautiful swan with a long elegant neck, and all my tiny 2’s became her babies on the ocean that was my cuaderno—the journal he left with me so that... I have been in love with writing ever since. It is an art form, a gift from my father, his legacy to me. Guadalupe Garcia McCall is an author, poet, and educator. She was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico.[1] She is the recipient of the 2012 Pura Belpré Medal[2] for narrative. Guadalupe Garcia McCall was born in Coauhila, a Mexican state adjacent to Texas.

She immigrated to the United States with her family when she was six years old, and grew up in Eagle Pass, a small border town in South Texas.[3] When McCall was 17 years old,... She holds a B.A. in Theatre and English from Sul Ross State University in Alpine and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. McCall currently serves as an assistant professor of English at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon.[5] Her first novel, Under the Mesquite, debuted in October 2011 and received the prestigious Pura Belpré Award for... Born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of several young adult novels, some short stories for adults, and many children’s poems. Guadalupe has received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C.

Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades. Fluent in both English and Spanish, Guadalupe is a compelling speaker who has visited many middle schools, high schools, universities, festivals, conferences, and organizations all over the country. In 2016, she was invited to give a writing workshop and a keynote address at the Sirens Women In Fantasy Conference. In the spring of 2017, Guadalupe was selected as the Inaugural Artist in Residence by the Arne Nixon Center where she visited local high schools and taught courses at California State University Fresno. Also in 2017, Guadalupe gave the keynote for the National Latino Children’s Literature Conference in San Antonio, Texas. In 2018, she gave the keynote at the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts Conference in Galveston, Texas.

In 2021, Guadalupe had the honor of moderating the panel, Hispanic Heritage Month Authors Series, Celebrating Latino Experience, History, People, & Cultures, US Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA with the... However, her proudest distinction came when her alma mater, Sul Ross State University (SRSU), selected to feature her image and biography on their Living the Dream II – Cultural Pride on Campus mural outside... As an educator, Guadalupe taught K-12 in San Antonio Texas for decades before she moved to the Pacific Northwest to teach undergraduate courses in literature, women’s studies, and creative writing at George Fox University... She is currently a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing in the low residency MFA Creative Writing program at Antioch University in Los Angeles, CA, where she teaches graduate courses. As an educator, author, poet, and speaker, Guadalupe is an advocate for literacy, diverse books, and Own Voices. She is now a full-time author/part time educator and lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Jim, where she is working on two more books, Secret of the Moon Conch and Hearts of...

ON THE TENTH SEASON OF THE ARCHIVE PROJECT, ENJOY DISCUSSIONS FROM PORTLAND ARTS & LECTURES, PORTLAND BOOK FESTIVAL, AND OTHER COMMUNITY EVENTS FROM OUR HOME IN PORTLAND, OREGON AND BEYOND. Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Omar El Akkad (Rebroadcast) Our events, classes, and seminars bring the community together to hear, learn, and discuss the most compelling issues and ideas of our day. We hope you will join us in our community space and bookstore at 716 SE Grand Avenue, Portland, OR, online, and at partnering venues across Portland and Oregon. Literary Arts, Inc. is a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Copyright © 2025 Literary Arts Made by Needmore Designs My name is Guadalupe García McCall and I like to sit on the porch, listen to the sounds of nature, and write stories about the complexities of our world and our place in it. When I write, I think about how important and valuable life and all of its experiences are, so I try to write stories that give meaning to those experiences. My most recent book for older readers, ECHOES OF GRACE, from Tu Books, is a YA Borderlands Gothic novel featuring Grace, who is plagued by the ability to see, feel, even smell the past... After a horrible tragedy involving her sister, Mercy’s 2 year-old son, Alexander, Grace’s echoes shed light on a time three years before when she fled to Mexico and lost a whole week of her... Though the plot features magical realism and gothic elements like ghosts, a mystery, and haunted places, at the root of it the book is about the capacity of love and truth to help us...

I hope this book helps us begin talking, healing, and taking action to promote real change in the world. 47 Total Resources 24 Total Book Awards 10 Books Created by Mendocino Coast Writers' Conference Created by Young Adult Library Services Association - YALSA by David Bowles and Guadalupe Garcia McCall by David Bowles and Guadalupe Garcia McCall

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