Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, including Wild Dreamers , a Pura Belpré Honor Book that was also long listed for the National Book Award. Wings in the Wild received an International Latino Book Award Gold Medal, and The Surrender Tree received a Newbery Honor. Other awards include Pura Belpré Medals, Walter Honors, Américas Awards, a Jane Addams Award, a PEN U.S.A. Award, and the NSK Neustadt Prize. Margarita served as the national 2017-2019 Young People's Poet Laureate. Her most recent verse novel is Island Creatures .

Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother's homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. She studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing, and now lives in central California with her entomologist husband and soccer playing Border Collie. www.margaritaengle.com.