Yamile Mendez: Mormon Author

Yamile (pronounced sha-MEE-lay) Saied Méndez is the author of On These Magic Shores (2020), which won the Lee and Low’s New Vision Honor Award, and The Reel Wish, which was a Utah Arts Council Honor recipient. She also penned Blizzard Besties (2018) and Where Are You From? (2019).

Yamile is an inaugural Walter Dean Meyers Grant recipient and graduated from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the MFA Writing for Children’s program. She is also a graduate of Voices of Our Nation (VONA). She is part of Las Musas, a group of debut and sophomore Latinx authors of middle grade and young adult stories.

Originally from Argentina, she now lives in Utah with her husband and five children. She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.