Margarita Engle

Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, including Wild Dreamers, a Pura Belpré Honor book that was also long listed for the National Book Award. Wings in the Wild received an International Latino Book Award Gold Medal, and The Surrender Tree, received a Newbery Honor.

Other awards includes Pura Belpré Medals, Walter Honors, Américas Awards, Jane Addams Award, PEN U.S.A., and NSK Neustadt Prize. Margarita served as the national 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Her most recent picture book is Eloísa’s Musical Window, and her next verse novel is Island Creatures.

Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. She studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing, and now lives in central California with her entomologist husband and soccer playing Border Collie.

http://margaritaengle.com/