Guadalupe García McCall will deliver the commencement address at the Sul Ross State University Rio Grande College ceremony slated for Saturday, Dec. 10, at the International Center for Trade in Eagle Pass.

Guadalupe García McCall.  Michael Mercado Smith photo

McCall earned a Bachelor of Arts at Sul Ross State University in 1989 and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Texas in El Paso in 2017. Born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and raised in Eagle Pass, she taught English in Texas public schools for 29 years and then went on to a career as a professor of English and Creative Writing at George Fox University, Newberg, Ore. She is currently a visiting professor in the MFA Creative Writing program at Antioch University in Los Angeles.

In addition to teaching, García McCall is an award-winning author of several young adult novels, short stories for adults, and children’s poems. She has earned the prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades. Fluent in Spanish and English, her literary works focus on the Mexican American experience in the United States and advocates for literacy and diversity.

As an educator, author, poet, and speaker, García McCall is an advocate for literacy and diverse books. The full-time author/part time educator and lives in South Texas with her husband, Jim, where she is working on two more books tentatively titled The Moon Conch and Hearts of Fire and Snow, coming from Bloomsbury in 2023 and 2024.