Authors for Summer Seminar

 

Lensey Namioka was born in China and moved to the United States when she was nine. She attended Radcliffe College and the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in mathematics. She decided she liked being a writer better than being a mathematician. She's been writing for 30 years, and her books have received many awards. Ties that Bind, Ties that Break won the 2004 California Young Reader Medal and the 2000 Washington State Governor's Writers Award. Yang the Eldest and his Odd Jobs won the 2000 Parents Choice Gold Medal. Like the Yang Family, she lives in Seattle, Washington.
An Ocean Apart, a World Away
Since Yanyan was twelve, she has been fascinated by both Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, and is determined to become a doctor. But in China in 1921, it is unusual for a woman to attend University, let alone medical school. While most sixteen-year-old girls are planning their weddings, Yanyan has no interest at all in marriage. But that is before she meets a young man named Baoshu. An outstanding scholar and martial arts student, Baoshu is passionate and dangerous, and loves a challenge as much as Yanyan does.
Yanyan leaves China to study medicine in America, but she has not seen the last of Baoshu!
Gary Soto , born and raised in Fresno California, is the author of ten poetry collections for adults, most notably NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His recollections LIVING UP THE STREET received a Before Columbus Foundation 1985 AMERICAN BOOK AWARD. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including The Nation, Plouqhshares, The Iowa Review, Ontario Review and most frequently Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in Poets in Person. He is one of the youngest poets to appear in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.

Buried Onions
Gary Soto’s talent is so versatile that he writes for children, adolescents, and adults. Soto writes both poetry and fiction. While his work is steeped in the Mexican American community, his themes are universal.