{"id":292121,"date":"2026-04-29T22:37:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292121\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T22:37:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:37:18","slug":"young-writers-conference-welcomes-cuban-american-author-as-keynote-fresno-state-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292121\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Writers\u2019 Conference welcomes Cuban American author as keynote \u2013 Fresno State Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former U.S. Young People\u2019s Poet Laureate Margarita Engle<\/a> will deliver the keynote address at Fresno State\u2019s 46th annual Young Writers\u2019 Conference, an event that showcases the emerging creative works of high school students throughout Central California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, May 6, at the Satellite Student Union on campus. The morning session \u2014 which includes an awards ceremony and keynote \u2014 is free and open to the public. In the afternoon, registered participants attend writing workshops led by English Department student volunteers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Born in Los Angeles, Engle now lives in Clovis. She served as U.S. Young People\u2019s Poet Laureate from 2017-19, and she has published more than 40 books, including award-winning novels in verse, memoirs in verse and poetry collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to think that I\u2019ll be speaking to future writers, and meeting young people whose books I might have the chance to read in a few years,\u201d Engle said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Margarita Engle. (Photo by Shevaun Williams)<\/p>\n

Among her most notable books:<\/p>\n

\u201cEnchanted Air,\u201d a verse memoir that received the Pura Belpr\u00e9 Award.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrum Dream Girl\u201d and \u201cDancing Hands,\u201d both picture books.<\/p>\n

\u201cWild Dreamers,\u201d the verse novel and Pura Belpr\u00e9 Honor Book that was long-listed for the National Book Award.<\/p>\n

\u201cWings in the Wild,\u201d which received an International Latino Book Award Gold Medal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Surrender Tree,\u201d which received a Newbery Honor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a Cuban American author, Engle said she has always had deep ties and connections to Cuba. Embedded deep into her heart, she said she carries Cuba with significance to a place of being her mother\u2019s homeland and a place filled with childhood memories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Engle writes about searching for hope in situations that seem hopeless to young people, and she tries to bring awareness to conflicts between the U.S. and Cuba. In her verse memoir, \u201cEnchanted Air,\u201d she shares memories of fear and sorrow during and after the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Engle said she has spent her entire life waiting for a resolution between the two countries she considers home. Even to this day, she continues to \u201ckeep hoping for peace.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A prolific author, especially in recent years, Engle\u2019s next picture book is \u201cWifredo\u2019s Jungle, the Power of Wifredo Lam\u2019s Art.\u201d Her next verse novel is \u201cEvamar.\u201d She is looking forward to sharing her advice about what compels her to write with the 400-plus young writers coming to campus for the conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, poetry takes as long as it takes,\u201d she said. \u201cI write every day, at whatever pace the poem chooses to emerge. Second, I\u2019m getting older. It\u2019s now or never.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Listening to each other\u2019s work and building a community is what Engle believes will help young writers achieve their goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Engle said she wishes she would\u2019ve had a writing mentor when she first started. It was not until graduate school that she took a seminar course with the great Mexican American author Tom\u00e1s Rivera in which she found the guidance she was looking for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Rivera] taught me to write from the heart without worrying about whether my work would ever be published,\u201d she said. \u201cThat has helped me so much.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Young writers who attend the conference will experience a writing workshop on a college campus, taught by experienced graduate Master of Fine Arts students and undergraduate English majors. These generative workshops are aimed at teaching young writers to define and hone their craft.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also have an opportunity to see their creative works published in the conference\u2019s journal, Spectrum, which is edited by students in the English 166 Literary Editing and Publishing class. Many of those published also receive writing awards that include cash prizes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This year, the English Department expects more than 400 participants from more than two-dozen area schools.<\/p>\n

(Story by Destynie Molina; Jefferson Beavers contributed to this report.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former U.S. Young People\u2019s Poet Laureate Margarita Engle will deliver the keynote address at Fresno State\u2019s 46th annual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-292121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}