Villa describes his novel Canto Contigo, about community, music, and a sense of place. The book features a queer main character and describes the experience of readers expressing their excitement about the representation. #TexasBookFestival #TILChildrensLiteratureAwards

Villa discusses the process of getting into character to write and “understanding how they see their world” #TexasBookFestival #TILChildrensLiteratureAwards

Kemp discusses her book Desert Song and how the songs pay tribute to the Texas environment and her ancestors, guided by her own creative processes. #TexasBookFestival #TILChildrensLiteratureAwards

Villa, still talking about his experiences that made Canto Contigo, describes his experience with perfectionism and how that perfectionism appears in main character Rafie Álvarez #TexasBookFestival #TILChildrensLiteratureAwards

Kemp cites The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants as a major inspiration as the first time she’d read a Latina main character in YA fiction, describing how important the representation was to her #TexasBookFestival #TILChildrensLiteratureAwards

Correction, sorry: Children’s Literature Award Winners panel, moderated by Christ Barton #TexasBookFestival #TILChildrensLiteratureAwards