A Conversation with NYT Best Selling Author Erika L. Sánchez

For our series finale episode, we are excited to have New York Times best-selling author Erika L. Sánchez join us to talk about what inspires her work, what’s next for her, and how we can ignite students to become passionate readers and writers.  

Erika L. Sánchez is a Mexican American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her debut poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion, was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. Her debut young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Award finalist. It’s now being made into a film directed by America Ferrera. She is also the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Chair at DePaul University in Chicago. Her newest release and first adult book Crying in The Bathroom is a memoir that traces her life in deeply moving, wildly hilarious prose—from her misfit childhood growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in ’90s Chicago, to struggles with her body and mental illness, to her rise to literary fame.