Rita Williams Garcia
Twice a National Book Award Finalist, Rita Williams-Garcia is the author of six distinguished novels for young adults: Blue Tights,Every Time a Rainbow Dies, Fast Talk on a Slow Track, Like Sisters on the Homefront, No Laughter Here, and Jumped. Like Sisters on the Homefront was named a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and a best book of the year by ALA Booklist, School Library Journal, The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, and Publishers Weekly. No Laughter Here and Jumped are among Rita’s ALA Best Books for Young Adults. Jumped and One Crazy Summer were both National Book Award Finalists.
Rita Williams-Garcia is currently a faculty member at Vermont College for the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults Program. She has two daughters, Michelle and Stephanie, and lives in Jamaica, New York.
When and why did you begin writing and/or illustrating children's books?
I was Delphine’s age during the time period that the novel takes place. There’s so much I remember and want to share with young readers, but from a child’s perspective. History paints the Black Panthers as militants who weren’t above using violence to achieve their social and political aims. While this is true, the Black Panthers provided medical, legal, recreational/culture social services to poor and urban communities. The free breakfast program was one way they reached out to small children. It was the Black Panthers’ connection to children that inspired me to tell this story.
What inspires or informs your writing and/or art?
I read a lot as a child. Although I hungered for books that included African-American characters, I found books that took me on interesting journeys like The Island of the Blue Dolphins and Thirty-One Brothers and Sisters. The authors who served as mentors for me as a young writer were Zora Neale Hurston for her anthropological work and her ability to capture people celebrating their culture by being themselves, and Toni Morrison who wrote novels with complex characters throughout African-American history. From these authors I learned to truly love the people I wrote about and to not shy away from hard truths.
What do you want young readers to learn or take away from your work?
A story doesn’t just end when you close the book. It opens your mind to new things. I’d love readers to feel that they can take their imaginations as far as they can.
Is there an artist or writer you would consider and mentor and why?
While I was an undergraduate at Hofstra University I took creative writing classes with novelists Richard Price and Sonia Pilcer and received my masters in creative writing at Queens College. Today, I’m on faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA Program where I continue to learn so much from both faculty and students.
Do you have a favorite published book? If so, what makes it special?
Right now, my favorite work among my published novels is One Crazy Summer. Not only did I enjoy writing this story, I also enjoyed getting to know the characters—even the difficult characters like Cecile. In fact, I loved them so much I wrote a follow-up book about the Gaither sisters when they return to their home in Brooklyn. That story is called P.S. Be Eleven and I hope readers will like it as much as they liked reading One Crazy Summer.