The Reading Festival

For the sixth year we held The Reading Festival with the purpose of promoting literature and reading in Spanish in the Miami community, with special emphasis on children and young people, but without forgetting the adult public.

The main theme of the festival was the inclusion and we had the collaboration of Lola Hernández, specialist in autism and director of the organization Including Everyone for Equal. Mrs. Hernández gave a workshop, gave a talk for young students and presented her book Animals, Love, Friendship in North Miami Beach Public Library.

This year we had as special guests the authors Espido Freire, from Spain; Sergio Ramí­rez, from Nicaragua, and Antonio Malpica, from Mexico.

The program included, among other activities, visits of writers to public schools in the city, a seminar on inclusion, addressed to teachers, and the presentation, in different cultural spaces, of the adult books Llamadme Alejandra, by Espido Freire, and Ya nadie llora por mí­, Sergio Ramí­rez.

As part of the 2018 Reading Festival, the theater play for children ™s In the Kitchenland, witth the theme of inclusion, was produced and premiered. This play was written by Antonio Orlando Rodrí­guez and Sergio Andricaí­n and interpreted by Leonardo van Schermbeek and Saúl Mendoza. The masks designs were made by the visual artist Carlos Estévez. The show was presented at the closing of the event, which also included the children's workshop to create masks The Inhabitants of Imaginary Cities, with Carlos Estévez as instructor.

The recital of poetry Secrets, Cities and Poets, for adult public, counted with the participation of the writers Lizette Espinosa, Germán Guerra, Rosie Inguanzo and Rodolfo Martí­nez Sotomayor.

The official poster of the event was made with an illustration created by Eric J. Ruiz, a young man diagnosed with autism, with the help of his mother Lola Hernández.

Fiesta de la Lectura 2018 had the support of Department of Cultural Affairs of Miami-Dade County, Miami Book Fair, Cultural Institute of Mexico, Spanish Cultural Center of Miami, Cinco Books, Artefactus Cultural Project, Bilingual Education Department and Foreign Languages of the Miami-Dade Public Schools, Books & Books, North Miami Beach Public Library, 3Mindware, Jordan-Marcos The Agency, La Poderosa, and other institutions.