Rene saldana biography

René Saldaña, Jr., is the author of critically acclaimed fiction for young adults, including the novels The Jumping Tree and The Whole Sky Full of Stars.

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Today&#;s blog post is a guest post by my friend and colleague, René Saldaña, Jr. It&#;s such a treat to host him, his teaching, and his students.

First, a bit of background: René Saldaña, Jr., is the author of several books for children and young adults, among them The Jumping Tree, A Good Long Way, Heartbeat of the Soul of the World, and A Mystery Bigger than Big, the 4th installment of his bilingual Mickey Rangel mystery series. In honor of pets and in celebration of Sylvia and Janet's latest Poetry Friday Power Books, Pet Crazy, here is a list of his own: Sadie and Chito (dogs) and Gordon, Cotton, Jet, Dottie, and Raisin (all cats). He is associate professor of Language, Diversity, and Language Studies in the College of Education at Texas Tech University.

Here René writes about the evolution of his teaching and shares (with permission) some of the work his students created this summer. Enjoy!

Don&#;t Be Fooled: Nothing&#;s Wasted on the Young

A Meanderin

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Saldaña, René, Jr.

Personal

Born in McAllen, TX; married; wife's name Tina; children: Lukas, Mikah. Education: Bob Jones University, B.A.; Clemson University, M.A.; Georgia State University, Ph.D. (English and creative writing).

Addresses

Home—Lubbock, TX. Office—Texas Tech University, College of Education, Box , Lubbock, TX E-mail—[email&#;protected]; [email&#;protected].

Career

Author and educator. University of Texas-Pan American, Edinburgh, assistant professor of English; Texas Tech University, Lubbock, assistant professor of language and literacy, —. Also taught middle school and high school in Texas for six years.

Awards, Honors

Humanities Texas grant.

Writings

The Jumping Tree (novel), Delacorte Press (New York, NY),

Finding Our Way (stories), Wendy Lamb Books (New York, NY),

The Whole Sky Full of Stars (novel), Wendy Lamb Books (New York, NY),

Contributor of stories to anthologies, including Face Relations: Stories from beneath the Skin, Simo

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Eventually, Inevitably: My Writing Life in Verse / Tarde o temprano era inevitable: Mi vida de escritor en verso
When students ask author René Saldaña, Jr. how one becomes a writer, he says, “It’s complicated.” In this memoir written in verse for young adults, the author remembers his boyhood and the path that led to his becoming a reader, writer and scholar. He begins with “The Deets: My Parents as Kids,” and recounts “’Apá was born a long time ago / ‘Amá a few years after him.” His father finished elementary school in Mier, Tamaulipas, and then went to Nuevo Laredo to study machines. His parents married in Chihuahua, Texas: “It’s got one street / called Charco, or mud-puddle.”
René’s childhood along the Texas-Mexico border was filled with lots of family—cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents; his abuelo told countless stories that helped define the boy. He read magazines at the grocery store, watched his mother read Selecciones, the Spanish-language version of Reader’s Dige