The Things We Didn’t Know by Elba Iris Pérez explores a young girl’s childhood between 1950s Puerto Rico and a small Massachusetts factory town as she is caught between cultures, grappling with her identity and where she belongs. Isa Arsén’s debut novel, Shoot the Moon, follows Annie Fisk, who works at NASA during the preparation for the moon landing in 1969 and all that led her there – her childhood, college years, and above all her deep relationship to science, physics, and discovery. These authors will discuss writing historical fiction, the quest for identity, and the triumphs and heartache that mark the journey to adulthood.
Photo Credit: Luke Hill
Isa Arsén is a certified bleeding heart and audio engineer based in South Texas, where she lives with her spouse and a comically small dog. She has published several shorts and pieces of experimental interactive media. Inspired by her own childhood in New Mexico, Shoot the Moon is Arsén’s debut novel.
Photo Credit: Cristie Reddehase
The inaugural winner of Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us contest, Elba Iris Pérez is from Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico; spent her early childhood in Woronoco, Massachusetts; taught theater and history at the University of Puerto Rico in Arecibo; and now lives in Houston. She is also the author of El teatro como bandera, a history of street theater in Puerto Rico. The Things We Didn’t Know is her debut novel.
S. Kirk Walsh is the author of the national bestseller The Elephant of Belfast, which was published by Counterpoint Press in 2021 and by Hodder in the UK and the Commonwealth and Ireland as well as being translated in several foreign editions. She writes for the New York Times Book Review, Texas Highways, and elsewhere. She is also the founder of Austin Bat Cave, a nonprofit that provides free writing workshops for younger writers in the greater Austin area.
