DMC Hosting a “Meet the Authors” and Book Signing Event with Sergio Troncoso and Guadalupe Garcia McCall on April 27
Award-winning Mexican American authors’ books to be available for purchase and signing
Article by Rosa Linda Reynoso
What’s better than one author? Two, of course! Award-winning Mexican American authors Sergio Troncoso and Guadalupe Garcia McCall are joining forces to discuss their critically-acclaimed and recently released books during “Meet the Authors,” along with a book signing, on Thursday, April 27, at Del Mar College (DMC).
Additionally, DMC alumna and award-winning author Diana López will introduce the two guest speakers. López is known for her own work, including Coco: The Story of Music, Shoes and Family; Sing with Me: The Story of Selena Quintanilla; the adult novella, Sofia’s Saints, and several middle-school grade novels. Currently, she is president of the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL). López has released her new book, Los Monstruos: Felice and the Wailing Woman.
Sponsored by the College’s Mexican American Studies Program and the TIL, the free public event begins at 5:30 p.m. in Room 124 of the Coles Classroom Building on the Heritage Campus, located at 101 Baldwin Blvd. (78404). Get directions and the online campus map.
Books will be available for purchase through the Del Mar College Bookstore, including Troncoso’s Nobody’s Pilgrimsand Garcia McCall’s Echoes of Grace. Participants can expect light refreshments during the “Meet and Greet” and book signing.
For more information, contact Javier Morin, Professor of Spanish and Coordinator of the Mexican American Studies Program, at 361-698-1582 or jmorin@delmar.edu.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Troncoso was born and grew up on the east side of El Paso in rural Ysleta. He often writes about the U.S.-Mexico border, working-class immigrants, families and fatherhood and crosses cultural, psychological and philosophical borders as well as the border beyond the border.
His books include Nobody’s Pilgrims, which won the Gold Medal for Best Novel-Adventure or Drama in English from the International Latino Book Awards, The Last Tortilla and Other Stories, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays, The Nature of Truth, From This Wicked Patch of Dust, and A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son, which Luis Alberto Urrea praised as “a world-class collection.” Additionally, Troncoso is editor of Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in Between Worlds and Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence.
Troncoso’s recent work has appeared in Texas Highways, Houston Chronicle, CNN Opinion, New Letters, Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review and Texas Monthly.
A Fulbright scholar and past president of the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL), he was named a TIL Fellow, the first Mexican American writer to receive this distinction. Troncoso teaches fiction and nonfiction at the Yale Writers’ Workshop in New Haven, Ct. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received two graduate degrees in international relations and philosophy from Yale University.
For more information about the author, visit Troncoso’s website at sergiotroncoso.com.
Born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, and raised in Eagle Pass, Garcia McCall is the award-winning author of several young adult novels, some short stories for adults and many children’s poems. An educator, author, poet and speaker, Garcia McCall’s Echoes of Grace plays on the South Texas legend of the dancing diablo and is the winner of this year’s TIL Best Young Adult Novel Award.
An advocate for literacy, diverse books and the Own Voices movement, Garcia McCall has received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award and the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award. She was also a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other honors.
Now a full-time author and part-time educator residing in San Antonio, Garcia McCall is currently working on two more books, Secret of the Moon Conch and Hearts of Fire and Snow, coming from Bloomsbury in 2023 and 2024.
Learn more about Garcia McCall on her website at ggmccall.com.
Del Mar College empowers students to achieve their dreams. We offer quality programs, individual attention, outstanding instruction through faculty with real-world experience and affordable costs to credit and noncredit students in Corpus Christi and the South Texas Coastal Bend area. Nationally recognized while locally focused, we’re ranked in the top two percent of community colleges in the country granting associate degrees to Hispanic students (Community College Week). Del Mar College focuses on offering our students programs that match current or emerging career opportunities. Whether students are interested in the fine arts, sciences, business, occupational or technical areas, students get the education they need for the future they want at Del Mar College.