Carmen Tafolla
Recent Book Awards for Carmen Tafolla
In January, 2010, Dr. Carmen Tafolla became the first Latina to win the Charlotte Zolotow Award for Best Children's Picture Book for What Can You DO with a Paleta? (Tricycle Press). It was also selected for the Tejas Star Reading List and only days later, announced as the 2010 winner of the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Book Award for Children's books.The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans: A Feast of Short Fiction (Wings Press) received the 2009 Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Book Award for Young Adult Literature.
In 2009, What Can You DO with a Rebozo? (Tricycle Press) was selected as an ALA Notable Book, and Pura Belpre Honor Book, an Américas Award Commended Title, and a Junior Library Guild and Texas Two-by-Two Reading List selection.
Tafolla's non-fiction children's book, That's Not Fair: Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice / No Es Justo: La Lucha de Emma Tenayuca por la Justicia was named by Críticas Magazine as one of the Best Children's Books of 2008.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. Carmen Tafolla is the author of numerous award-winning books of poetry, nonfiction works, short stories, and books for children. She is among the most anthologized of all Latina writers. Called a "world class writer" by Alex Haley, Carmen Tafolla's latest books include The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans: A Feast of Short Fiction and Sonnets and Salsa, a widely-praised collection of poetry that is the basis of Tafolla's one-woman show. She is the author of several books for children, including That's Not Fair! Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice / ¡No Es Justo! La lucha de Emma Tenayuca por la justicia (written with Sharyll Teneyuca), Baby Coyote and the Old Woman / El Coyotito y la Viejita, (all published by Wings Press) and What Can You DO With A Rebozo? and What Can You DO With A Paleta? (both published by Tricycle Press).
Tafolla is also the author of Sonnets to Human Beings & Other Selected Works, which includes not only the title selection (winner of the University of California at Irvine's 1989 National Chicano Literature Contest), but a large selection of Tafolla's poems and short stories, as well as several essays on Tafolla and her work. Tafolla's poems and short stories are included in many anthologies and in dozens of textbooks, at every level from elementary through college.
Born and raised in San Antonio, many of Tafolla's early poems employed the bilingual idiom of the city's westside. She has long been regarded as one of the masters of this type of poetic code-switching. Curandera (1983) is considered something of a core document in this regard. In the 1970s, Tafolla was the head writer for "Sonrisas," a pioneering bilingual television show for children. Her dramatic talents make her readings both lively and of profound emotional impact.
Tafolla received her Ph.D. in Bilingual and Foreign Language Education from the University of Texas in 1982. She has held a variety of faculty and administrative posts at universities throughout the Southwest, including Associate Professor of Women's Studies at California State University at Fresno, and Special Assistant to the President for Cultural Diversity / Visiting Professor of Honors Literature at Northern Arizona University. She was the first Chicana faculty member to direct a Chicano Studies Center in the U.S. (Texas Lutheran College, 1973). She has been a freelance educational consultant on bilingual education, writing and creativity, and cultural diversity issues for over three decades.
A scholar of note, Tafolla is the author of To Split a Human: Mitos, Machos, y la Mujer Chicana, and is a dynamic, much sought-after speaker. Her one-woman show has been performed in London, Wellington, Christchurch, Madrid, Malaga, Mexico City, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, and throughout the U.S.
Tafolla currently lives in the city of her ancestors, San Antonio, in a 100-year-old house called Casa del Angel, with her husband, Dr. Ernesto M. Bernal, her son and daughter, Carmen's mother, three cats, a dog, and a multitude of manuscripts, molcajetes, and books.
In 1999, she was presented with the Art of Peace Award for writings which contribute to "peace, justice, and human understanding."