Virtual Authors Series: Anna Lapera ’08 and Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice

Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 7:00 PM until 8:00 PMEastern Daylight Time UTC -04:00

Join us in partnership with Friends of the Library for a Virtual Authors Series event with Anna Lapera ’08.

Anna Lapera ’08 is a mixed-race Guatemalan American author and educator. Her debut novel, Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice, is a Jane Addams Peace Award finalist, an American Library Association’s RISE Feminist Book Project selection, and an International Latino Book Award winner. It was also named one of the best of 2024 by the New York Public Library, School Library Journal, and others. She is a Pushcart prize nominee, a Granum Foundation Prize shortlister, and a Tin House and Macondo Writers Workshop alum. She lives in Silver Spring, MD, with her husband, two daughters, and a rescue dog named Leo.

Hear Lapera share her experience writing about the character of Manuela “Mani” Semilla. Mani desperately wants two things: to get her period, and to thwart her mom’s plan of taking her to Guatemala on her 13th birthday. That is until one day, up in the attic, she finds secret letters between her mom and a disappeared feminist journalist aunt in Guatemala, transforming Mani from quiet bystander into budding activist.

Our moderator is Professor Irline François.

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