René Peña-Govea

René Peña-Govea is a writer, educator and musician born and raised in San Francisco. René’s debut novel, Estela, Undrowning, has garnered starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, and made René a Publishers Weekly Spring 2026 Writer to Watch. She published her first poem and released her first album at age fifteen, and since then, has been named an inaugural Bay Beats musician, a YBCA-100 Honoree, a Las Musas Hermana, SFPL Brown-Handler Resident, a Creative-in-Residence at The Ruby and the North Coast Project, and a Nomadic Literary awardee. René works as a public school librarian, and performs music with three generations of La Familia Peña-Govea and as René y Familia. She is currently drafting her second novel.