Jennine Capó Crucet, author of the celebrated short story collection "How to Leave Hialeah" and the exceptional novel "Make Your Home Among Strangers," is humble, modest, methodical and hilarious -and puts all of that into her work.
Brooklyn-born author Theresa Varela ("Nights of Indigo Blue" and "Covering the Sun With My Hand") took the scenic route to finding her identity as an author. A psychiatric nurse practitioner by day and an engrossed novelist by night, Varela's characters whisper to her, and inspire their own making.
Suzan Colón, yoga instructor and author of inspirational memoir "Cherries in Winter," is a Manhattan girl through and through. Yet, her writing takes readers to myraid places.
Yadhira Gonzalez-Taylor, attorney and author of "Martina Finds a Shiny Coin" and "Martina and the Wondrous Waterfall," uses her "bifurcated upbringing" to create stories that preserve and hearten Puerto Rican culture.
Alma P. Rodriguez, former educator and author of "Los Marmolejos: The Dance of the Alleles Vol. 1" is a novelist who is committed to sharing rich stories about family history, and passionate tales about the origin of identity.
Jennifer De Leon, educator and author of "Home Movies" and "The White Space" has always loved stories. Since toddlerhood, she's loved listening to stories, writing them and telling them, and while her parents weren't educators or writers, they were great storytellers, who easily articulated warm stories about their home nation, Guatemala.
Alejandro Morales, accomplished author and professor of Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California, is a covert speculative fiction novelist and a tireless employer of bilingualism in his prose.
Joe Cepeda, the Los Angeles-born illustrator of awarding-winning picture books, is also an author, a former engineer and a masterful pictorial storyteller.
Daniel Gutierrez is a motivational speaker and the author of the "Stepping Into Greatness: Success Is Up To You" and "Fifty Lessons I Learned on my Path to Peace and Tranquility." Beyond that, the humorous, charismatic and painstakingly honest thought leader has made openness and transformation his life's work.
Sergio Troncoso, author of "From This Wicked Patch of Dust" and "The Nature of Truth," was born to a legacy of storytellers, writers and educators, and he was obliged to follow suit and tell incredible truths and stories through writing --even if his grandfather warned him against it.
New York Times Bestselling Author Pam Muñoz Ryan has penned more than 25 phenomenal books, including "Esperanza Rising," "Becoming Naomi Leon" and "Echo." The incomparable author has been putting her pen to work for over 20 years, and she still has plenty of magical, edifying and charming tales to tell.
Reyna Grande, author of the critically acclaimed memoir "The Distance Between Us," endured a desolate and deprived early life, filled with abandonment. But decades later, the award-winning author has used her story as a tool to transform her life.
Sheila Sheeran, Spanish-language Puerto Rican author of "¿Te acostarías conmigo?" and "Tu Peor Error: Materia Oscura," was motivated toward authorship by her cumulative life experiences. Nearly 40-years-old, the daytime marketing executive borrows from her own life to fuel her provocative romantic fiction.
Paul Andreas Wunderlich, Guatemalan-born and Texas-dwelling author of the Spanish-language fantasy series "Saga de una Flama Creciente," is a man of medicine and literature.
Marta Acosta, author of "The She-Hulk Diaries" and "Dark Companion," is not the Latina Terry McMillian. Nor is she able to perpetuate stereotypes or preconceptions concerning what it means to be a woman writer, a Latina writer or a woman of color. However, the humorist can astonish with compelling fiction, which touches upon everything from vampirism to the blue collar chip on her shoulder.
Cuban-born and New York-raised author Cristina García was inadvertently nudged toward writing by her diary-prying mother. However, it was her own investigation of expression and culture that led her flourishing career and the creation of her many grabbing works, including "King of Cuba."
Born high in the Andes Mountains in Quito, Ecuador at an altitude of 9,000 feet above sea level, author Cecilia Velástegui has found success as an author of adult and children's books due to her extensive travel, her chameleon nature and "the serendipity of the Spanish tongue."
Jeanne Córdova, the prolific journalist, pioneer activist and resounding voice of the national lesbian feminist movement, didn't know she was Chicana until the age of 22, and that discovery expanded her disposition.
Colombian-born author Adriana Páramo left her native country 23 years ago. Geographical exploration and global wandering shaped the way she sees the world and the way she describes it, and this has been made abundantly clear by her books, "My Mother's Funeral" and "Looking for Esperanza."
When Spanish-born author Maria E. Andreu was five years old, she wrote what she thought was original stories. In retrospect, "Sleeping Beauty" as told by her wasn't quite an original composition. However, the young adult novel, "The Secret Side of Empty," which tells a candid and hard-boiled account of immigration, certainly is an original and powerful work.
Angela Cervantes, author of "Gaby, Lost and Found," has employed her love of writing to pen the influence of friendship, animals, immigration and hope in the lives of children, by use of diverse and strong characters.
