Anna Lapera is a Guatemala City-born author of multiple descents. She teaches middle school by day and writes stories about girls stepping into their power in the early hours of the morning. Her debut novel, Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice, is an International Latino Book Award winner, a 2025 International Literacy Association Honor book, a Jane Adamms Children's Book Award Finalist, and a 2025 American Library Association’s Feminist Book Project selection.  It was named one of the Best of 2024 by the School Library Journal, New York Public Library, Booklist, and was recently translated to Spanish. When she's not writing or teaching, you can find her in the coffee shops and hiking trails of Silver Spring, Maryland, where she lives with her family. Her second novel, a YA thriller set in 1978 Guatemala, is forthcoming (SPRING '28).