The Friends of the South Pasadena Library and The South Pasadena Public Library proudly present renowned poet and author Juan Felipe Herrera for a free, bilingual Author Night program for all ages on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 7:00 p.m.  The show will open with live music from professional flamenco guitarist Gabriel Reyna. The event is co-sponsored by Vecinos de South Pasadena and Poets & Writers, Inc. with financial support from the James Irvine Foundation.  The event will take place in the Library Community Room at 1115 El Centro Street and no tickets or reservations are necessary. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. and refreshments will be provided by the Friends.

Professor Herrera, Chairman of the Creative Writing Department at the University of California, Riverside and the author of 21 books, will discuss the unleashing of creative potential in children and teens. In his presentation, Professor Herrera will speak of his coming of age in California, his migrant farmworker family, and his emergence as a poet and children’s book writer and novelist. He will also display a digital album of images, landscapes, and recorded voices to illustrate his journeys into various indigenous communities in Mexico as he discusses the discovery of art in places seldom recognized.

During the past 10 years, Professor Herrera’s publications have included 14 collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels, and picture books for children. His literary endeavors have garnered the Ezra Jack Keats Award, the Hungry Mind of Distinction, and the Focal Award. In 2006 Professor Herrera received the Americas Award at the Library of Congress for his book Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box.  The Americas Award recognizes outstanding U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected nonfiction published in the previous year that “authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States.” Professor Herrera is also a community arts leadership builder with youth-at-risk and migrant communities, and an actor with appearances on film and stage.

The South Pasadena Library event will be one of Professor Herrera’s first appearances following the November 17th publication of 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments, 1971-2007 by City Lights Books of San Francisco. Like Juan Felipe Herrera’s other writings, its text is charged with theatrical and athletic energies, gathered from more than 35 years of work spanning from Mexico City to San Francisco and from Central America to Central California.

The event will conclude with a Q&A session with the audience and personally inscribed, autographed books will be for sale.