Margarita Longoria
Photo by Lizbeth Guerra at Signature Collections Photography
Margarita Longoria is a nationally recognized, award-winning high school librarian, educator, and passionate advocate for diverse literature based in South Texas. A lifelong bookworm and young adult literature expert, Longoria is the founder of Border Book Bash: Celebrating Teens and Tweens of the Rio Grande Valley, an initiative that fosters a love of reading and amplifies underrepresented voices.
She is the editor of the acclaimed anthology Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican in America (Philomel, 2021), a mixed-media collection of short stories, personal essays, poetry, and comics. This powerful volume serves as a hopeful love letter from the Mexican American community to today’s young readers, and a call for cultural visibility and inclusion.
A former English teacher with a BA and MA in English and an MLS in Library Science, Longoria is deeply committed to ensuring that all young readers, especially those from marginalized communities see themselves reflected in the stories they read. Through her work as both a librarian and literacy advocate, she actively combats hate and cultural erasure by curating and promoting stories that reflect and affirm the Mexican American identity.
She has served on state reading committees for the Texas Library Association and continues to be a powerful voice in the national conversation around representation in literature. Passionate about books, youth empowerment, and inclusive storytelling, Margarita also cherishes her two sons, football, coffee, Mr. Darcy, and her beloved rescue dog, Osito.
She grew up in Edinburg, Texas, and lives with her family in the Rio Grande Valley.
You can visit her online at margiesmustreads.com and follow her on Instagram at @MargiesMustReads.
Margarita is represented by Andrea Cascardi at Transatlantic Agency
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