Yamile Mendez: Mormon Author

Yamile (pronounced sha-MEE-lay) Saied Méndez is a children's and young adult novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Furia, the picture book Where Are You From? and middle grade novel On These Magic Shores. Furia and On These Magic Shores were both published in 2020.

Furia gained national attention when actress Reese Witherspoon selected it for Reese’s Book Club, which has been compared to Oprah’s book club in terms of influence. Furia is only the second young adult novel that Witherspoon has selected. In a video on Instagram, Witherspoon said, “This book will set your dreams on fire.”[1]

On These Magic Shores won the Lee and Low’s New Vision Honor Award. Her book The Reel Wish was a Utah Arts Council Honor recipient. She also penned Blizzard Besties (2018).

Yamile left her native Argentina to study at Brigham Young University and decided to set aside her dream to be a writer to study something practical instead, which ended up being international economics. She worked as a translator but when the urge to write continued, she wrote. She also earned a master’s degree from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in its Writing for Children and Young Adults program. She was an inaugural Walter Dean Meyers Grant recipient.

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.

In 2021, Méndez will publish What Will You Be?, a companion to Where Are You From?, and a middle grade novel entitled Shaking Up the House.

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.