About

How to pronounce Rebecca’s last name in one minute :-):

Bio in, ahem, third person:

A Guatemalan-Anglo American, Rebecca Balcárcel is the award-winning author of SHINE ON, LUZ VÉLIZ! and THE OTHER HALF OF HAPPY, as well as a contributor to Highlights magazine and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. Rebecca loves popcorn, her kitty, and teaching her students as Associate Professor of English at Tarrant County College. Look for Rebecca’s short story in BOUNDLESS, an anthology by multi-racial/multi-cultural authors, which she also co-edited. Find Rebecca on YouTube as the SixMinuteScholar.

Rebecca as a kid!

This me at age ten, lol! I liked roller skating, singing on my backyard swing, putting on plays with my BFF, and riding my bike. I also read a LOT, and I even re-read my favorite books, like The Boxcar Children and Charlotte’s Web. I lived in a small town in Iowa until we moved to Texas when I turned ten. Though I missed the huge trees of Iowa, I appreciated the Spanish speaking going on in Texas. It was then that I realized I could embrace both sides of my Guatemalan-American heritage. I not only love corn on the cob; I love corn tortillas!

Random tidbits!

• I biked 1300 miles in from Houston to Santa Fe one April back in my twenties — while pregnant! Get your own copy of the essay in Oklahoma Review that tells the story by joining my email list: I want to keep up with Rebecca.
• I am the mother of identical twins and their big brother.
• I once made a pilgrimage to Prince Edward Island to see the places that inspired  Anne of Green Gables. I also met the real Winnie the Pooh at NYC’s public library in 2017, and I enjoy the Lorax statue in Fort Worth, TX often.
• I went skydiving!
• I walked the 500-mile Camino de Santiago across northern Spain.

Memberships
Texas Institute of Letters
Las Musas, Latina Author Collective
Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators
National Conference of Teachers of English

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