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Lila Guzman
Lila Guzman is an award-winning author who writes from her home in Round Rock, Texas. Her works include translations of Spanish novels, short stories, biographies for children in both English and Spanish editions, Middle Grade novels and Young Adult novels.
She is a featured author at the Word Wrangler Book Festival, September 25-26, 2026 in Giddings, Texas.
Her awards include:
Arizona Authors' Association Annual Literary Contest. (Short Story, 1996).
The National League of American Pen Women. (Honorable Mention in Fiction, 1997)
Finalist, Book of the Year 2002, Foreword Magazine. (Lorenzo's Secret Mission.)
Her short stories have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul and other venues.
She is available for author visits, either in person or by Zoom. When contacting her, put "Author Visit" in the subject line. For adult audiences, she addresses the craft of writing and the Hero's Journey. For school visits, she talks with children about the little-known stories of the American Revolution.
The Lorenzo series (Arte Publico Press) is a series of Young Adult Novels (5th grade-8th grade) and tells the story of Spain's role in the American Revolution.
LORENZO'S SECRET MISSION (2001) is the true story of a flatboat flotilla that left New Orleans in September 1776 to deliver much-needed Spanish supplies to General Washington.
The Texas Connection to the American Revolution is the subject of LORENZO'S REVOLUTIONARY QUEST (2003). Bernardo de Galvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, sent vaqueros to San Antonio for longhorn cattle to feed soldiers fighting the British.
There were three battles of the American Revolution found in Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola. LORENZO AND THE TURNCOAT (2006) starts with the 1779 hurricane that devasted New Orleans. With Lorenzo at his side, Galvez attacks the British at Baton Rouge before they could take advantage of the devastation in New Orleans.
Her other works include:
Kichi in Jungle Jeopardy. (A chihuahua gets lost in the jungle in ancient Mayan times.)
Green Slime and Jam. (Three literary characters fall out of their books and land in modern-day Texas.)
Famous Latinos (Children's biographies in Spanish and English versions of Cesar Chavez, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Ellen Ochoa, Roberto Clemente, and George Lopez.)
Lila served as an officer in the U.S. Navy in the 1980s. She was born in Lexington, Kentucky but grew up in Louisville. She has an undergraduate degree in Spanish and French. In 1980, she completed a Ph.D. in Spanish with a specialty in 19th Century Peninsular Literature (University of Kentucky). The Navy stationed her at the Defense Language Institute where she met her husband, Rick. They live in Round Rock, Texas. They have three children and three grandchildren.
PUBLICATIONS
Armed with a long knife, flintlock musket, and his father's medical bag, fifteen-year-old Lorenzo Bannister sets off to fulfill his father's deathbed wish. Lorenzo joins a secret flatboat operation delivering much-needed medicine and gunpowder to George Washington's army, leading the reader on a romping ride from the docks of New Orleans to the battlefields of the American Revolution. Trained as a medic by his father, Lorenzo makes his way up the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers, witnessing the horrors of slavery and political warfare. During his adventures, Lorenzo meets some of the important figures of the time, such as George Washington and Bernardo de Galvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana who helped the American rebels.
This action-packed historical novel dramatizes in vidid detail the Hispanic contribution to the American Revolution.
In this sequel to Lorenzo's Secret Mission, the intrepid young adventurer is back to fulfill his commitment to the American Revolution. General George Washington names Lorenzo a captain in the Continental Army and sends him on another challenging mission: to purchase 500 head of cattle in Texas from the Spanish. With Colonel De Galvez's aid, Lorenzo herds longhorn cattle to the Mississippi River via the King's Highway--a rustic dirt road through the provinces of Texas and Louisiana.
Lorenzo's quest brings him face to face with the notorious renegade rustlers of the southwest under the command of the menacing Chien d'Or. And just in the shadows waits "Saber Scar"--the man that holds Lorenzo responsible for his capture and imprisonment. His escape from prison is one short breath away.
Kichi, a rare blue Chihuahua, has lived his whole life pampered by Fortune Teller at the temple in the Mayan city of Chilaam. Still he is lonely. No matter how much he tries, he can't teach Fortune Teller to speak Dog. When Fortune Teller's brother captures a new slave from a rival city, Kichi can't believe his luck. The new boy, Uxmal, can speak Dog! Just as Kichi makes a new friend, raiders attack Chilaam and kidnap Uxmal. Now Kichi must brave the dangerous jungle to save his friend.
