91´«Ã½

CHICAGO - The 91´«Ã½’s Office for Diversity is pleased to announce Marina Budhos and Kekla Magoon as participants in Many Voices, One Nation during the 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

Marina Budhos is the author of “Ask Me No Questions” and “Tell Us We're Home,” both from Atheneum / Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. She has also published two adult novels, “Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers,” and the forthcoming “Sugar Changed the World,” co-authored with her husband, author Marc Aronson. She has received the inaugural James Cook Teen Book Award, an EMMA (Exceptional Merit Media Award) and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award for Women Writers. Ms. Budhos has been a Fulbright Scholar in India and is currently an associate professor of English at William Paterson University. She lives with her husband and their two sons in Maplewood, N.J.

Kekla Magoon’s debut novel, “The Rock and the River,” from Aladdin / Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, was the winner of the 2010 Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award for New Talent and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. “The Rock and the River,” is a poignant novel about an African-American boy's search for identity and brotherhood set in Chicago in 1968. Magoon has worked with youth-serving organizations in New York City and Chicago. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and resides in New York City.

Budhos and Magoon will be joined by authors Benjamin Alire Sáenz and R. Dwayne Betts at Many Voices, One Nation during the 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

This year’s Many Voices, One Nation will take place from 7:30-10 p.m. on Friday June 25 and will highlight 91´«Ã½ President Camila Alire’s Family Literacy Focus, an initiative to encourage families in ethnically diverse communities to read and learn together. The Many Voices, One Nation program, an evening of literature and performance during the 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference, brings together writers and artists from different perspectives and presents a rich program of spoken word, music and performance art that celebrates and reminds us of the many unique cultures sharing one world.

Through Gale’s generous sponsorship, tickets to Many Voices, One Nation will be free to Conference attendees. A maximum of 300 free tickets will be available for the event, so individuals are encouraged to register early for this event. To register for the the conference or update your registration, please visit: