CBC Hosted Diana Lopez, Author of Coco: A Story About Music, Shoes, and Family

Coastal Bend College hosted Diana Lopez, the author of Coco: A Story About Music, Shoes, and Family in April at the Gertrude R. Jones Auditorium. Lopez is a Corpus Christi native, where the book and movie’s setting takes place.

She now lives in Victoria, Texas, as a creative writing instructor at the University of Houston-Victoria. Lopez is involved with other literary organizations such as the magazine, Huisache and is the managing director of CentroVictoria., an organization that promotes Latino literature and art.

Lopez has written works such as Sofia’s Saints and the middle-grade novels, Confetti Girl, and Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel. She has also been featured in the anthologies Hecho en Tejas and You Don’t Have a Clue and has been a guest on NPR’s Latino USA.

In her spare time, Lopez enjoys teaching, playing board games such as Settlers of Catan and spending time with her husband.

While presenting details about her novel, Coco: A Story About Music, Shoes, and Family she explained how Disney Pixar Animation Studios reached out to her to write the story behind the movie that was coming out, due to her recognition in the literary field for her work in traditionally Hispanic stories.

Of importance to Lopez is to recognize the number of novels written about Hispanic culture and heritage and the race of the authors who write such novels. At this time, there is a great downfall between the number of books written, especially for children, that express the Hispanic heritage written by people of Hispanic descent.