WHO AM I? FINDING YOUR IDENTITY

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
| Location of Session: Copper Kitchen
Young Adult (YA) Sessions

Start of Signing: 5:15 pm
| Signing Location: Festival Marketplace

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About the Event

A teenage love story of queer longing, a young muralist working in their family’s taqueria, and a family trip to Mexico. Pura Belpré-honored Jonny Garza Villa (Ander & Santi Were Here) joins fellow YA writers Aaron Aceves (This Is Why They Hate Us) and Christine Suggs (¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico) to discuss how mental health, cultural expectations, and family dynamics shape their characters’ trajectories. Don’t miss these three empowering voices on one stage!

Authors will be introduced by students from the Young Women’s Leadership Academy.

About the Authors

Jonny Garza Villa

Jonny Garza Villa is an author of contemporary young adult literature with characters and settings inspired by their own Tejane, Chicane, and queer identities. Whatever the storyline, Jonny ultimately hopes Latines, and, more specifically, queer Mexican American young people will feel seen in their writing. Their debut YA novel Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun was a Pura Belpré Honor Book and a Kirkus Best YA Fiction of 2021 selection. When not writing, Jonny enjoys reading, playing Dungeons and Dragons, visiting taquerías, listening to Selena, and caring for their many cacti children. They live in San Antonio. Ander & Santi Were Here is their latest novel.

Photo Credit: Monwell Frazier

Aaron H. Aceves

Aaron H. Aceves is a bisexual, Mexican American writer born and raised in East Los Angeles. He graduated from Harvard College and received his MFA from Columbia University. His fiction has appeared in Epiphany, The Florida Review, and Passages North, among other places. He currently lives in Texas, where he serves as an Early Career Provost Fellow at UT Austin. His debut young adult novel, This Is Why They Hate Us, was released by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers and received multiple starred reviews and was named a Best Young Adult Book of 2022 by Kirkus Reviews.

Christine Suggs

Christine Suggs is a comic artist and designer living in Dallas, TX with their wonderful partner, one dog, and two cats. Christine’s work explores the intersection of their identities, namely being a queer, fat, Latinx feminist who loves all things cute. Bonus facts: their day job is in app design, they are an avid Dungeons & Dragons player, and they’re quite obsessed with their cats. ¡Ay, Mija! is their debut graphic novel.

Moderator