Memoirist, poet, and speaker Javier Zamora believes that immigrants must keep ownership of their own stories. In his award-winning memoir, Solito, he explores his own: a harrowing journey to the US as an unaccompanied nine-year-old that gives a unique and unforgettable glimpse into the realities of child migration. In his talks, he shares the story of his trek to reunite with his family, and how therapy and writing were able to help him heal from the trauma that has haunted him ever since.

Javier Zamora has been a Stegner fellow at Stanford University and a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard, and holds fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Zamora has also been granted fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University, the Lannan Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, Macondo, and Yaddo. HIs debut poetry collection, Unaccompanied(Link is external) (Link opens in new window), is rooted in the indelible experiences of a nine-year-old boy navigating politics, racism, war, and the impact of a border crossing on his family.

Zamora holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and has earned an MFA from New York University. The recipient of the 2017 Narrative Prize, the 2016 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, and the 2020 Pushcart Prize, Zamora has been published in Granta, the Kenyon Review, American Poetry, the New Republic, the New York Times, and Poetry, among other publications.

Free copies of Javier's book, Solito, will be handed out to the first 350 in-person attendees.