CANCELLED: Due to major travel delays, the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series event featuring National Book Award winner Elizabeth Acevedo scheduled for tonight – Monday, April 15, 7:30 pm, at the Alley Theatre – has been cancelled. We apologize for the inconvenience and are looking at ways to reschedule Elizabeth’s visit to Houston. We will be in touch soon with further details. Thank you so much for your understanding.
Elizabeth Acevedo will read from her new novel Family Lore, followed by an on-stage conversation with celebrated Houston author Jasminne Mendez. The evening will conclude with a book sale and signing. The event is presented as part of the 2023/2024 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. ASL interpretation will be available at this event.
ELIZABETH ACEVEDO, the current Young People’s Poet Laureate, “is in full command of her special powers as a storyteller of compassionate, capacious, and lyrical imagination” (Julia Alvarez). Her New York Times bestselling YA novel-in-verse The Poet X was “an incredibly potent debut” (Jason Reynolds) and won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Michael L. Printz Award, and the Carnegie Medal. Acevedo is also the author of the picture book Inheritance: A Visual Poem and the YA books Clap When You Land and With the Fire on High, which explore family, love, and Dominican-American culture.
Acevedo comes to Houston to share her first novel for adults about a lineage of powerful sisters, Family Lore. About the novel, Angie Cruz writes, “Acevedo has written unforgettable characters who breathe new life into how we grieve, age, and take care of each other.” According to Kiese Laymon, “No writer on earth transforms a page into a home with distinct emotional chambers like Acevedo…. This is how stories should be made,” and Jacqueline Woodson adds, “With Family Lore, Elizabeth Acevedo has made the transition into the adult world look easy. The true gift of a stunningly talented writer.” Acevedo lives in Washington D.C. and is a National Poetry Slam Champion.
JASMINNE MENDEZ is a Dominican-American poet, playwright, translator, and award-winning author of books for adults and children. Her most recent publications include Aniana del Mar Jumps In, a YA novel in verse, her YA memoir, Islands Apart: Becoming Dominican American, her poetry collection City Without Altar, and translations into Spanish of children’s books by Amanda Gorman and Nikole Hannah-Jones/Renée Watson. She is Program Director for Tintero Projects and co-hosts the Inprint/Tintero Projects podcast Ink Well, which showcases primarily Latinx writers.
