Hay Festival Querétaro 2022 – Outreach

Natalia Toledo is the author of the book Guendaguti Ñee Sisi: La Muerte pies ligeros, which tells the story of how death came to Earth, inspired by the images of the great Oaxaca artist Francisco Toledo, the author’s father, and presentes in a Zapoteco/Spanish bilingual edition. Toledo will share a reading of this tale with the public and talk about it with Imanol Martínez.

Dolores Reyes is a writer and educator from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her first book, Cometierra, tells the story of Cometierra, a girl with a special gift, but also one that is hard to live with. When she was small, she ate some earth and had her first vision. In it, she saw her father killing her mother. This book shows the power of literature as a means of expressing difficult situations, whether they are real or imagined. At this workshop, Dolores Reyes will share her experience as a writer in an activity that will teach those attending some tools to bring their ideas into being, making them into stories.

Cristina Fortuny (Venezuela) is an economist, writer, conference speaker and adopted Queretaran, and she has dedicated her life to closing the generation gap, promoting links between parents and children as the best protection against the challenges faced by children as they grow up surrounded by screens. Her book Crecer entre pantallas (2022) is about the uses and misuses that young people make of technology, and how parents can deal with this; it is about interacting with these devices, managing mental health, and realizing the potential that these technologies have when used well. In conversation with Imanol Martínez.

At this event, two journalists give us a view of Ecatepec, in Mexico State, which has many of the characteristics, problems and dreams of contemporary Mexican society. Lydiette Carrión, a Mexican journalist and author, writes on the topic of violence against women in her native country. She is the author of the book La fosa de agua, an investigation that documents cases of femicide in the municipalities of Tecámac and Ecatepec in Mexico State. Emiliano Ruiz Parra (Mexico City, 1982) studied Hispanic Language and Literatures and has been a reporter for Reforma and a contributor to Gatopardo magazine. His most recent publication, Golondrinas: Un barrio marginal del tamaño del mundo (Debate, 2022), is his fourth book of literary non-fiction. Since 2020 he has been a member of the Investigative Reporting Unit and works with the Corriente Alterna site, an initiative run by UNAM’s Department of Cultural Dissemination. These two writers will talk to Felipe Rosete about the problems that beset the city of Ecatepec.

In this conversation with Karla Iberia Sánchez, Alma Delia Murillo (Mexico), Reforma newspaper columnist and author of several novels and books of short stories, presents La cabeza de mi padre, which tells the story of a forty-year old woman who, brought up among seven siblings and a working mother, sets out to look for her father. The plot of this writer’s most recent book is both a present journey and a set of reflections on the past.

Dahlia de la Cerda (Mexico) is a fiction writer, activist and philosopher, distinguished with various awards for literature and creative pursuits. She is the co-founder of the Morras Help Morras organization, a feminist collective that works from and for the periphery, and author of Perras de reserva (2022), a powerful collection of stories in which the writer reveals some of the most unjust aspects of the patriarchy. The goal of this workshop is for its attendees to obtain basic tools to write their first narrative texts.

Adriana Grimaldo thinks that perhaps humanity's best invention has been words. With them, we not only connect with the world, but we can share our interior world with others. Adriana loves and admires words: she speaks with them, learns them, listens to them, reads them and writes them. At this activity, children and teenagers will discover the importance of creating, taking care of and sharing words and ideas to build better life stories.

Ages 6 and over

Elisa Guerra is a teacher, writer and friend to both children and trees. In 2015 she was named Best Educator in Latin America and the Caribbean by the Inter-American Development Bank, and has been shortlisted for the Global Teacher Prize twice. At this event she will talk about her latest book, Las voces de los árboles, in which she takes us to a parallel world where trees of different species and from different places around the world tell us their stories and lead us to reflect on the damage we are doing to the planet.

Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos aims to promote knowledge and exchange among writers of different generations and nationalities, united by a single language and a literary tradition enriched by authors of diverse origins. The project consists of having an established author select a younger one on the other side of the Atlantic for conversations. On this occasion we present a conversation between Rosa Montero and Clyo Mendoza, moderated by Irma Gallo.