Author Reyna Grande will be speaking in Deets Library on the campus of Southwestern College on Tuesday, Sept. 15, from 6-8 p.m.  The lecture will be about her latest book, “The Distance Between Us” with an emphasis on the theme of Freedom.  The community is invited to attend and there is no admission charge. 
The event is sponsored by SC Women’s Connect, South Central Kansas Library System, and Deets Library.  

As part of its Pillars Project, the college focuses each year on one of the virtues celebrated in its alma mater and represented by the Christy pillars of Knowledge, Hope, Courage, and Freedom.

Grande is an award-winning novelist and memoirist. She has received an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award, and the Latino Book Award. In 2012, she was a finalist for the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Awards. Her works have been published internationally in countries such as Norway and South Korea.

Her novels, “Across a Hundred Mountains” (Atria, 2006) and “Dancing with Butterflies” (Washington Square Press, 2009), were published to critical acclaim and have been read widely in schools across the country. Her latest book, “The Distance Between Us,” was published in August 2012 by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. In this memoir, Grande writes about her life before and after illegally immigrating from Mexico to the United States. A National Book Circle Critics Award finalist, “The Distance Between Us” is an inspirational coming-of-age story about the pursuit of a better life. The Los Angeles Times hailed it as “the ‘Angela’s Ashes’ of the modern Mexican immigrant experience.”

Born in Mexico, Grande was two years-old when her father left for the U.S. to find work. Her mother followed her father north two years later, leaving Grande and her siblings behind in Mexico. In 1985, when she was nearly ten years-old, she entered the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant (she has since become a United States citizen). She later went on to become the first person in her family to graduate from college.

After attending Pasadena City College for two years, Grande obtained a B.A. in creative writing and film and video from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She later received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Antioch University. Now, in addition to being a published author, she is an active promoter of Latino literature and is a sought-after speaker at high schools, colleges, and universities across the nation.

Grande teaches creative writing at UCLA Extension and is at work on her next novel.

Copies of “The Distance Between Us” are available for purchase at Watermark Books and Café at 4701 East Douglas in Wichita and at Deets Library at Southwestern College.  Grande will be available to sign books while at Southwestern.

For more information, contact Dalene McDonald, Deets Library director, at (620) 229-6271.