Joe Hayes

Joe Hayes is an American author and one of the country’s premier storytellers, best known for sharing folktales from the Hispanic, Native American, and Anglo traditions of the American Southwest in both Spanish and English. Born in Pennsylvania in 1945 and raised in southern Arizona, he learned Spanish from his Mexican American classmates, an experience that later shaped his pioneering bilingual storytelling style. He lives in New Mexico and has spent more than four decades telling stories to children and adults across the United States, including a long residency as storyteller at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe.

Hayes has published more than two dozen books, many issued in both English and Spanish, and began sharing his stories in print in 1982. His works include the bilingual folktale collection The Coyote Under the Table/El coyote debajo de la mesa: Folk Tales Told in Spanish and English, illustrated by Antonio Castro L. Other notable titles are La Llorona/The Weeping Woman, The Day It Snowed Tortillas, Ghost Fever, Watch Out for Clever Women, and The Gum Chewing Rattler. His books have received honors such as the Arizona Young Readers Award, the Texas Bluebonnet Award (for Ghost Fever as the first bilingual winner), the Land of Enchantment Children’s Book Awards, and the National Story