The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers’ Board of Directors is made up of dedicated individuals who work closely with Alliance staff to support our work with teens through the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and other programs.
Our newest Board Member, Dr. Juan Felipe Herrera, is a poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist, who is deeply inspired by the teen artists and writers of the Scholastic Awards. During his first Board meeting in June 2023, he shared, “I could write poetry about each piece because it is just so incredible. I just love, love, love all the art that comes out of Scholastic Awards students.”
Dr. Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (2015-2016) and is the first Latino to hold the position. From 2012-2014, Herrera served as California State Poet Laureate. Herrera’s many collections of poetry include Every Day We Get More Illegal; Notes on the Assemblage; Senegal Taxi; Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007. He is also the author of Crashboomlove: A Novel in Verse, which received the Americas Award.
Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth. His books of prose for children include SkateFate, Calling The Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award; Upside Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical for young audiences in New York City; and Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. His book Jabberwalking, a children’s book focused on turning your wonder at the world around you into weird, wild, incandescent poetry, came out in 2018. In August 2022, the Juan Felipe Herrera Elementary School opened its doors in Fresno, California.
In the fall of 2021, NASA requested a poem from Herrera for their interstellar Lucy Spacecraft, which carries a special time capsule featuring messages to our descendants. He also has won many awards including the National Book Critics Circle Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Ruth Lilly Lifetime Achievement Prize, Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement, LA Times Award, Latino Hall of Fame, Robert Frost Medal, and the UCLA Chancellor’s Medal.
Stay tuned for more introductions to the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers’ Board of Directors on our blog.
Image credit: Carlos Puma