Hay Festival Querétaro 2023 – Hay Festival Comunitario Querétaro

Ernesto Galán has degrees in Performing Arts and Law. He is the Artistic Director of the Miscelánea Teatro company and has written and directed a range of plays. He is also the manager of a reading space for child workers, and creator of the La Bodega forum and the La Miscelánea Escénica theatre festival. In this conversation with Elisa Guerra he will discuss the subject of drama based on his experience with children and young people.

Andrés Cota Hiriart is a biologist, zoologist and writer. He has written books including Cabeza ajena (2017), Faunologías (2015), El ajolote. Biología del anfibio más sobresaliente del mundo (2016) and Fieras familiares (2022), and has come close to all kinds of animals in their natural habitats, travelling to some amazing places around the world, like the Galapagos, Borneo, Sulawesi and the island of Guadalupe. At this event, Cota will focus on a wonderful creature from his native Mexico: he will start out with the iconic axolotl and move onto the ajolote of Queretaro state, which is not so commonly mentioned. During the event, he will share images and excerpts from his books.

The Mexican artist Paulina Suárez studied Illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California, where she lived between 2008 and 2013. She is currently based in Mexico, where she works as a freelance artist and art educator. Her illustrations have appeared in work for different publications and publishers, including Editions FLBLB, Cacciani, FCAS, Esto es un libro, Revista Marvin, Cartelera CCUT Tlatelolco, Far Faria, as well as for the Coco Lab, Llamarada and Los Hijos de Jack animation studios. At this workshop, participants will have the chance to use stickers to create their own monsters, and then to colour and decorate them.

Gina Jaramillo is an art historian, General Manager of Radio Chilango, has worked as a children’s activist through the Colectivo Niñeces Presentes initiative, and now brings her talents to children’s literature. In her new book El guardián de los quesos she tells us the story of Tigre, a cat that visits various homes in the neighbourhood, which inspires Bibi and Mon to explore the different ways of seeing and forming a family. Jaramillo highlights the importance of love, empathy and respect, and she uses inclusive language to reflect the evolution of communication and family structures and relationships in today’s society.

Elisa Guerra (Mexico) holds a Master’s in Education at Harvard University. In 2015 she was named Best Educator in Latin America and the Caribbean by the Inter-American Development Bank, and was a member of the UNESCO Futures of Education’s International Commission. At this event, she will talk about her latest book, Las voces de los árboles, a work that takes readers to a parallel world in which trees of different species around the world tell us their story and let us reflect on the harm we are doing to the planet.

What do you have to do to win an Olympic medal or play at a football World Cup? In her book Súper deportistas mexicanos, Frida Martínez portrays 24 high-achieving Mexican sportspeople. Her book reveals the hard work, discipline and dedication of her chosen protagonists, who train in karate, gymnastics, athletics, baseball and more, until they reach the top of their sport. In conversation with Kenya Acosta, Frida Martínez tells us these stories, which show how high we can fly as long as we have imagination, consistency and effort.

The radio is a medium whose importance cannot be overemphasised. From its beginnings, it has worked to communicate, inform and entertain. Today we have other media that serve similar functions, but it is of interest to know more about the radio, to understand what it can do, what it can contribute. At this event, Tere Alcántara will talk about the radio, sharing with the children curious anecdotes and information. Work will be done on breathing, diction and intention and, to finish, teams will create a radio programme, in which participants can present their work, as if they were broadcasting a real radio programme.

Divided into five sections, with an opening and an ending in the anime tradition, the poems of Paola Llamas Dinero explore the sensations that occur when fiction forms an essential part of our lives. Through language based on words, images and signs, characteristic of the street, television and Internet, the author examines our relationship with the world of fiction through anime, manga and the social media. She will ask how imaginary worlds determine many of our feelings and identities. She also wonders, if we are constantly relating to characters who do not exist, watching a series or scrolling through stories on Instagram, whether we can really form links with other people. In conversation with Yudi Martínez.

Ekaterina Álvarez was born in Moscow and lives in Prague. She is the publisher and author of her first children’s book, ¿Dónde está Arte?. In this entertaining work, the writer takes us on a trip through some of Mexico City’s main museums (from the Anthropological Museum, to the University Museum of Contemporary Art, via Chapultepec Castle and the Museum of Modern Art) in search of the Treasure of the Bones, together with little Otta and her dog Artemio. However, in the blink of an eye, Arte gets lost, and we go together with Otta to find him. In conversation with Elisa Guerra.

Dinero y escritura is a very personal book of fiction by the award-winning author Olivia Teroba (Mexico), which looks at matters related to the profession of writing and the conditions that make it possible in hyper-capitalist societies. In this series of texts, written in the first person, Teroba shares the ins and outs of her fragile relationship with writing, and with the world itself, framed by family and bodily demands that she expresses in a style that is both lucid and intimate. In conversation with Margarita Aguilar Urbán.

Frida Cartas (Mexico), from Mazatlán, describes herself as a housewife and part-time writer. A former presenter at the Instituto Mexicano de la Radio with the programme Altersexual (a sexual anthropology programme) on Radio Ciudadana, she contributes to digital media outlets and gives workshops on sexual and reproductive rights for young people, with a class and gender perspective. She is also the author of the extraordinary novel Transporte a la infancia, which, using honest, colloquial language, recalls the scenes from her childhood in which she discovered and affirmed her identity, creating an essential testimony for the recognition of trans childhoods, bringing to light the urgency of guaranteeing respect, protection and freedom for trans children. In conversation with Imanol Martínez.

What do you have to do to win an Olympic medal or play at a football World Cup? In her book Súper deportistas mexicanos, Frida Martínez portrays 24 high-achieving Mexican sportspeople. Her book reveals the hard work, discipline and dedication of her chosen protagonists, who train in karate, gymnastics, athletics, baseball and more, until they reach the top of their sport. Frida Martínez shares these stories, which show how high we can fly as long as we have imagination, consistency and effort. In conversation with Tere Alcántara.

Andrés Cota Hiriart is a biologist, zoologist and writer. He has written books including Cabeza ajena (2017), Faunologías (2015), El ajolote. Biología del anfibio más sobresaliente del mundo (2016) and Fieras familiares (2022), and has come close to all kinds of animals in their natural habitats, travelling to some amazing places around the world, like the Galapagos, Borneo, Sulawesi and the island of Guadalupe. At this event, Cota will focus on a wonderful creature from his native Mexico: he will start out with the iconic axolotl and move onto the ajolote of Queretaro state, which is not so commonly mentioned. During the event, he will share images and excepts from his books.

Raúl Robin Morales is the creator of the animated short film El tigre sin rayas and of the illustrated book of the same name. In the story, we meet a little tiger from the savannah who, until the others, has no stripes. The young feline undertakes a journey to seek them, and finds other things on the way. At this event, we will watch the short film and discover the book that tells this beautiful story.

Adriana and Ana Grimaldo offer a workshop on the subject of architecture, aimed at children. Using the spaces, forms and colours found in the buildings of the Mexican architect, Luis Barragán, we will be able to discover the artistic details that are hidden in Mexican sweets, toys and traditions. The construction of a model inspired by one of the spaces in Barragán’s house will be the starting point for a reflection on how to turn our own history into original creations.

Montse Bizarro (Spain) is a Journalism graduate with a Master’s in Literary Creation. She is also an activist who raises awareness about, and works against, discrimination linked to mental health, autism and gender. Her novel Mañana ya no hablaremos de nada explores these matters through the lives of Mar and Lorena, who have a relationship permeated by psychological and emotional instability, the result of living in a hostile context, with the city of Barcelona as the backdrop. A very contemporary reflection on the structures of our relationships and mental health. In conversation with Daniel Montes Pimentel.

This event promises to be a magical experience full of stories and laughter. We present an exciting puppet kamishibai of Mi abuelo se comió un reloj, a story by the puppeteer Raúl Ángeles, illustrated by Arturo Trejo Delgado and published by the Queretaro Municipality Department of Culture. This is an adventure where imagination and fun come together to make for an unforgettable performance. The author will guide us through the pages of his story, while the characters come alive before our eyes, becoming enchanting puppet figures.

The Mexican artist Paulina Suárez studied Illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California, where she lived between 2008 and 2013. She is currently based in Mexico, where she works as a freelance artist and art educator. Her illustrations have appeared in work for different publications and publishers, including Editions FLBLB, Cacciani, FCAS, Esto es un libro, Revista Marvin, Cartelera CCUT Tlatelolco, Far Faria, as well as for the Coco Lab, Llamarada and Los Hijos de Jack animation studios. At this workshop, participants will have the chance to use stickers to create their own monsters, and then to colour and decorate them.

Ernesto Galán has degrees in Performing Arts and Law. He is the Artistic Director of the Miscelánea Teatro company and has written and directed a range of plays. He is also the manager of a reading space for child workers, and creator of the La Bodega forum and the La Miscelánea theatre festival. At this activity, those attending will be invited to participate in writing and group rewriting in order to stimulate creativity, fantasy, observation and memory. Participants will use and reappropriate sentences taken from the public digital space and the tangible public space. These will mix with other words, images, feelings and contexts, and so create a collective writing of “stories of a thread”.

Divided into five sections, with an opening and an ending in the anime tradition, the poems of Paola Llamas Dinero explore the sensations that occur when fiction forms an essential part of our lives. Through language based on words, images and signs, characteristic of the street, television and Internet, the author examines our relationship with the world of fiction through anime, manga and the social media. She will ask how imaginary worlds determine many of our feelings and identities. She also wonders, if we are constantly relating to characters who do not exist, watching a series or scrolling through stories on Instagram, whether we can really form links with other people. In conversation with Yudi Martínez.