The Betsy - South Beach Escribe Aquí Festival Closes with a night of celebration!
Keynote Author Ana Menéndez, music, dance, and and the first theatrical reading of scenes from "Romeo y Julieta en la Saguacera," adpated from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, by Ana Menéndez and Pablo Cartaya and presented exclusively for Escribe Aquí 2016.
The Betsy's weekly (mostly jazz) Live Music continues after the event, in the Betsy Lobby from 10pm to 11pm.
Free and open to the community.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ana Menéndez is the author of four books of fiction: Adios, Happy Homeland!, The Last War, Loving Che and In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, lastly as a prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. As a reporter, she wrote about Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan and India, where she was based for three years. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including Vogue, Bomb Magazine, The New York Times and Tin House and has been included in several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. She has a B.A. in English from Florida International University and an M.F.A. from New York University. A former Fulbright Scholar in Egypt, she now lives in Surfside, Florida.
Pablo Cartaya is the author of the forthcoming middle-grade books, The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora and Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish (Viking Children’s Books/Penguin Random House), and the co-author of the picture book, Tina Cocolina: Queen of the Cupcakes (Random House Children’s Books).
Pablo has been a guest lecturer at Florida International University’s Exile Studies Program, visited schools throughout the northeast and South Florida, and hosted many literary events throughout the region. Pablo has led the development of various literary programs through The Betsy-South Beach's Philanthropy, Arts, Culture, and Education programs and has served on many panels and presentations. He holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Loyola Marymount University and currently serves as lead faculty for at Sierra Nevada College's low residency MFA in the Writing for Children and Young Adults track. He calls Miami home.
ESCRIBE AQUÍ: Escribe Aquí is an annual festival that honors the diversity of writing in various languages by hosting authors across cultures and languages for events and residency in The Writer’s Room. They convene to salute their own diversity; thereby transcending the notions of a dominant society that mistakenly perceives them as having ‘one’ voice.
This program is funded by The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Festival partners include Suburbano, Miami Book Fair, Koubek Center, Sudaqui, Books & Books, PG Family Foundation, Miami Dade College, Florida International University, University of Miami, and The Betsy Community Fund. Learn more and see images from last year's Festival HERE.