The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature and its Artist-in-Residence Fellowship Program Committee announced that award-winning, young adult author
Guadalupe Garcia McCall will be the first Arne Nixon Center Artist-in-Residence Fellow.

McCall will spend one week on the Fresno State campus in spring 2017 working with students in English, education and additional courses. During McCall’s stay, she will offer instruction on writing, provide presentations to education students on how to use fiction in the classroom and she’ll visit two local high schools to talk about her work. An opening public reception will be hosted by the Arne Nixon Center Advocates and a culminating program will showcase the students’ achievements.

McCall is the author of three highly-acclaimed titles, including her first novel, the Pura Belpré Award-winning book “Under the Mesquite.” For this book, she also won the 2013 Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award and an Américas Award honorable mention. Her second book, “Summer of the Mariposas,” was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy and was named on School Library Journal’s best books of the year list. “Shame the Stars,” her newest book published this year, has been awarded a Kirkus starred review. A rich reimagining of “Romeo and Juliet,” set in the explosive years of the Mexican Revolution, Kirkus called it “a must-read, complex twist on a political Shakespearean tragedy.”

As a recipient of the fellowship, McCall will receive a $10,000 stipend. The Arne Nixon Center Artist-in-Residence Fellowship was made possible by the generosity of a donor who wishes to remain anonymous. The awarding committee consists of professors from the Fresno State English Department; the Early, Literacy, Bilingual and Special Education Department; the Chicano and Latin American Studies Department; the Women’s Studies Program and the Arne Nixon Center’s curator, Jennifer Crow.

“We are excited to bring young adult author Guadalupe Garcia McCall to Fresno State to share her passion for writing with our students and our community,” Crow said. “Her versatile style plays to the genres of realistic, fantastical and historical fiction, yet is always informed by her sense of social justice and clarity of heart.”

With a mission to promote the best books in children’s literature through its collection and programs, the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature is a unit within the Special Collections Division of the Madden Library.

For more information, contact Jennifer Crow at 559.278.8116 or jcrow@csufresno.edu.

Related Links: