Join these 2024 National Book Award honorees to hear real-life inspirations behind their books, and how they polished ideas and fascinations into their final drafts. Moderated by Ruth Dickey, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, this session is presented in partnership with the NBF.

UA Campus Store (Seats 250)  
Sat, Mar 15, 1:00 pm - 1:55 pm
National Book Awards
Signing area: Sales & Signing Area - UA Campus Store Lower Level (following presentation)  

Panelists: Jason De León, Violet Duncan, Octavio Quintanilla, Ernest Scheyder
Moderator: Ruth Dickey
Sponsors: Session made possible courtesy of UA Campus Store, Michael and Debra Lisull

Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours In Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours, Octavio Quintanilla takes us on a profound journey to witness what it means to erase those boundaries devised by genre and politics intent on stifling memory, imagination, and creativity. Presented in Spanish with English translations, this poetry collection comprises lyric and concrete poems—or frontextos—that explore intimacy and different shades of violence as a means to reconcile the speaker’s sense of belonging in the world. From the opening poem to the last in the first section, Quintanilla captures the perilous journeys that migrants undertake crossing borders as well as the paths that lovers forge to meet their endless longing. These themes are skillfully woven by Quintanilla, guiding us back and forth across the Rio Grande to encounter the apparitions of the disappeared and to witness the willingness of many to risk life and limb for a better life. The second half of the collection is one long poem, a letter addressed to a lost lover who will never get to read the speaker’s secret thoughts. Haunted by loss—of parents, of children, of the self—the speaker reaches an inevitable epiphany: “[A]nd sometimes it’s hard to know / on which side of the river I stand.” Stylistically, these poems destabilize our notions and expectations of genre and lyricism. Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours is more than just an exercise in poetic virtuosity; it is an excavation into the complexities of what it means to be a human being in our contemporary world.

University of Arizona Press, Booth #244 (Seats 1)  
Sat, Mar 15, 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Poetry

Author: Octavio Quintanilla

Can poetry heal our personal and collective wounds? Confronting both historical and present forms of violence — colonialism, U.S. border policy, racism and more — each of these poets explores language as an urgent response to pain.

Student Union Kiva (Seats 100)  
Sat, Mar 15, 4:00 pm - 4:55 pm
Poetry
Signing area: Sales & Signing Area - UA Campus Store Main Floor (following presentation)  

Panelists: Denise Low, Octavio Quintanilla, Danez Smith
Moderator: Aria Pahari
Sponsors: Session made possible courtesy of Max McCauslin and John Smith, Russ and Blyth Carpenter

Poets explore themes of self, belonging, and resistance in relation to American identity. Through personal and cultural lenses, these authors redefine what it means to aspire, succeed, and struggle in contemporary America, reshaping complex stories of resilience and hope in the wake of the election.

Student Union Kiva (Seats 100)  
Sun, Mar 16, 11:30 am - 12:25 pm
Poetry
Signing area: Sales & Signing Area - UA Campus Store Main Floor (following presentation)  

Panelists: Jose Hernandez Díaz, Octavio Quintanilla, Danez Smith
Moderator: Paola Valenzuela
Sponsors: Session made possible courtesy of Max McCauslin and John Smith, The Greg D. and Melanie S. McFarland Foundation