Rebecca Balcárcel

Rebecca Balcárcel received her MFA in creative writing and literature from Bennington College’s Writing Seminars and received their Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. The Other Half of Happy won the Pura Belpré Author Honor, which recognizes literature for children or youth that best portrays the Latinx cultural experience. Her poems and essays have appeared in journals such as Third Coast and North American Review, and her book of poems is titled Palabras In Each Fist. She currently serves the students of Tarrant County College as Associate Professor of English and lives in Belford, Texas. Booklist calls her latest middle-grade novel, Shine On, Luz Véliz! “a lovely and touching coming-of-age story.”