Authors featured in the cover photo: Yaa Gyasi, Jam Sanitchat, and Valeria Luiselli
To commemorate International Women’s Day we have rounded up some great books by female authors that have come to our Festival in the past. Their voices carry a unique perspective that we celebrate here at the Texas Book Festival.
Valeria Luiselli (@ValeriaLuiselli)
Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. She is the winner of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and an American Book Award, and has twice been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize. She has been a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and the recipient of a Bearing Witness Fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and McSweeney’s, among other publications, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. She attended the 2014 Texas Book Festival with her book, Faces in the Crowd.
Buy the book here.
Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she held a Dean’s Graduate Research Fellowship. She attended the 2020 Texas Book Festival with her book Transcendent Kingdom.
Buy the book here.
Julia Alvarez (@writerjalvarez)
Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. She has taught and mentored writers in schools and communities across America and, until her retirement in 2016, was a writer in residence at Middlebury College. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library’s program “The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez.” In the Time of the Butterflies, with over one million copies in print, was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program, and in 2013 President Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling. Most recently Julia Alvarez attended the 2020 Texas Book Festival with her book, Afterlife.
Buy the book here.
Anika Fajardo (@anikawriter)
Anika Fajardo was born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota. She is the author of a book about that experience, Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family, which was awarded Best Book (Nonfiction) of 2020 from City Pages and was a finalist for the 2020 Minnesota Book Award. She is the author of the middle-grade novel What If a Fish, a 2021 finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. What If a Fish was featured in the 2020 Texas Book Festival.
Buy the book here.
Agustina Bazterrica (@AgusBazterrica)
Agustina Bazterrica is an Argentinian novelist and short story writer. She is a central figure in the Buenos Aires literary scene. She has received several awards for her writing, most notably the prestigious Premio Clarin Novela for her second novel, Tender Is the Flesh. Tender Is the Flesh was featured at the 2020 Texas Book Festival.
Buy the book here.
Jam Sanitchat (@thaifresh)
Born and raised in Thailand, Jam Sanitchat hails from a family of skilled cooks. She learned the craft from her grandmothers and mother beginning at the age of five. Jam moved to the United States to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Texas, then fell in love with Austin and the local food culture. She has fed the community ever since–through her farmers market stand, her cooking classes, and her popular restaurant, Thai Fresh. Her dairy-free ice cream parlor, Gati opened in 2020. Thai Fresh (the cookbook) was featured at the 2020 Texas Book Festival.
Buy the book here.
Ibi Zoboi (@ibizoboi)
Ibi Zoboi was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her YA novel American Street was a National Book Award finalist and her debut middle grade novel, My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich, was a New York Times bestseller. She is the author of Pride, a contemporary YA remix of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and editor of the anthology, Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America. Her most recent bestseller, Punching the Air, is a YA novel-in-verse, co-authored by prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five. Raised in New York City, Ibi now lives in New Jersey with her husband and their three children. My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich was a featured title at the 2019 Texas Book Festival.
Buy the book here.
Einat Admony (@chefeinat)
Einat Admony is the author of Balaboosta and chef/owner of New York City’s popular Balaboosta, Kish-Kash, and Taïm restaurants, which have been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times, and New York magazine, among many other newspapers, magazines, and websites. When Admony is not at her restaurants, she can be found at her home in Brooklyn, cooking for the crowd of family and friends who regularly gather around her dining table. Her book, Shuk, was featured at the 2019 Texas Book Festival.
Buy the book here.
Additional Resources:
International Women’s Day Website
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John Gallagher is the art director of the National Wildlife Federation’s “Ranger Rick” magazine and has been drawing comics since he was five (John learned to read through comics and went on to earn the distinction of reading every book in his elementary school library!). John is also the cofounder of “Kids Love Comics” (an organization devoted to using graphic novels to promote literacy) and leads workshops teaching kids how to create their own comics. John lives in Virginia with his wife and their three kids. Visit him at MaxMeow.Com, on twitter @johnBGallagher, on facebook @MaxMeowCatCrusader and on instagram @johngallagher_cartoonist.
Lincoln Peirce is a New York Times bestselling author and cartoonist. His comic strip Big Nate appears in over 400 newspapers worldwide and online at 
Colleen AF Venable is the author of the National Book Award Nominated graphic novel Kiss #8 and is making her middle grade debut with Katie the Catsitter. Colleen is a lifetime comic fan and has designed numerous award winning graphic novels at First-Second books. She’s also is an avid rollerskater, animal rescuer, and once started a national holiday (true story). Colleen lives in Brooklyn, NY with her two pet rabbits. (photo credit: Amber Harrison)
Stephanie Yue grew up in Atlanta, Beijing, and Hong Kong. She’s a lifetime comic fan and martial artist (with a black belt in Kung Fu) and travels the world by motorbike. Stephanie was the colorist for the megahit, industry changing, Smile by Raina Telgemeier and Katie is her debut as a middle grade graphic novel illustrator. Stephanie currently divides her time between Boston and Hong Kong, where she’s working on the second Katie. Visit her online at 
