Rita Williams-Garcia, a Queens, New York native, is the celebrated author of novels for young adults and middle grade readers. Williams-Garcia is most known for her Coretta Scott King Author Award winning Gaither Sisters trilogy that begins with One Crazy Summer, recipient of the Newbery Honor and the Scott O’Dell Prize for Historical Fiction. She is a three-time Coretta Scott King Author Award recipient and a three-time National Book Award Finalist. Her YA+ historical novel, A Sitting in St. James, set in 1860 Louisiana, won the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature and the 2021 Boston Globe – Horn Book Award for Poetry and Fiction. Her middle grade novel, Clayton Byrd Goes Underground won the 2018 NAACP Image Award for Literature for Young People and was a 2017 National Book Award Finalist. Rita Williams-Garcia served as a faculty member at the VCFA MFA Writing for Children and Young Adults program from 2005-2015.
