Aida Salazar

Aida Salazar is an award-winning author and arts activist whose writings for adults and children explore issues of identity and social justice. She is the author of the critically acclaimed middle-grade verse novels The Moon Within and Land of the Cranes. Her other books include the picture book anthology In the Spirit of a Dream: 13 Stories of Immigrants of Color (Orchard Books), the picture book biography Jovita Wore Pants: The Story of a Mexican Freedom Fighter (Scholastic Press), the middle-grade novel A Seed in the Sun (Dial), and the middle-grade anthology My New Gift: 16 Period Stories from BIPOC Authors (Candlewick). Aida is a founding member of LAS MUSAS—a Latinx kidlit debut author collective. Her story "By the Light of the Moon" was adapted into a ballet production by the Sonoma Conservatory of Dance and is the first Xicana-themed ballet in history. She lives with her family of artists in a teal house in Oakland, California.