Dr. Carmen Tafolla (CarmenTafolla.net) is the 2015 State Poet Laureate of Texas, the first City Poet Laureate of San Antonio, and the former president of the Texas Institute of Letters. An award-winning poet and children’s author, storyteller, performance artist, motivational speaker, scholar, and professor, she is the author of more than forty books and Professor Emeritus of Transformative Children’s Literature at UT San Antonio. A native San Antonian, she has performed her one-woman show in ten countries and throughout the U.S. Her many distinctions include the prestigious Américas Award, seven International Latino Book Awards, three Tomás Rivera Book Awards, two ALA Notable Books, the Art of Peace Award, and the Charlotte Zolotow Award. Her middle-grade novel Warrior Girl received the Tomás Rivera Award and was a finalist for the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and this fall Penguin Random House will release her new picture book, Night of the Three Kings.
