Category Archives: Blog

A writer’s desk is like a home base. Sometimes it doubles as a kitchen table or an entertainment system. Despite it being a multi-tasking alter, a writer’s desk has lots of personality.

I am lucky enough to have two.

I guess it depends on what your definition of lucky is. I am a reporter at a newspaper in Louisiana so I have a desk there. And there there is my desk at home. Both look like a tornado ravaged it. Papers are everywhere. Books are stacked up high and my latest article or short story or novel has completely taken over any left over desk space.

So I thought I would share occasional pictures of my writing desks because, and let’s face it, they are a metaphor for my life right now.

Today’s is pretty tame. A picture of my pen cup at work, with an American flag that I got from a recent story assignment, a picture of my dad, and a postcard from my recent trip to the Bahamas.

Enjoy the window into my soul.

I have been holding on to a tidbit of information that I haven’t shared with the entire world yet. Well, my Twitter family knows. And my co-workers know. And I think I told my sister.

Okay, I just haven’t blogged about it.

I have a short story coming out as part of a collection called Soul’s Road. The book will be out soon and is written by my fellow Goddard students. In fact, all of the authors and even the person who wrote introduction, have ties to Goddard College. Cody Luff, an alum and good friend (and AMAZING writer. Sweet Jesus!) is the editor of the collection.

I’m excited about this. This is good. So why haven’t I shared this info on my writing blog? I think it’s really a bit of tunnel vision. My focus is school and getting packets done. So I got my story for the anthology done in between packet work. After that was off my plate, it was vacation time. That’s when I found out, when I was waiting for a plane to return from vacay. But then I was too tired and my deadline for the story wasn’t until the next month.

Not an excuse but an explanation.

Now that school is almost over and the deadline for the short is near, I’m thinking about this awesomeness that is this project and how lucky I am to be included in this. Who am I to even be considered for this?

But who am I not to be? That really should be the question. I have been a story teller nearly all my life and I’m still refining my craft, working on technique, creating stories, and observing the world. And that’s what this collection is about– observing the world, writing the truth through art.

Sound familiar?

I am darn goosh lucky to be part of this. The writers in the collection are heavy hitters and craft masters. They know and understand their art and they tell their stories, their truth, as they see it.

It’s gonna be a great collection. I’ll give you a heads up on publishing dates. But for now, like the Facebook page for more details.

Write on!

My silence in the blogosphere has come with a price — brand new shiny pages. Yes my friends, my  thesis/novel is moving along nicely and will be (more like has to be) done by September. So when the leaves begin to fall, the last dot on the page will be typed and I will, with any luck, be sipping on a martini.

Why a martini instead of a glass of champagne? I guess it’s a tradition, actually. Back when I finished my first book (which now sits in a desk drawer where embarrassing things should sit) I didn’t have enough money for a bottle of bad champagne. Oddly enough, I had some gin, vermouth, and apple pucker. (Yes, I don’t know why I had these things but alas, when you’re a journalist living in the middle of the country with nothing to do you gain interesting things in your pantry.)

So then, at 11:30 in the morning after crying my eyes out, I mixed myself up a cocktail to celebrate. And since then, when I finish a book I must drink a martini…and then buy myself some nice jewelry. In fact, I have my eye on a necklace from Tiffany’s.

All this to say that I can taste a martini in my near future and a sparkly newness around my neck.

Hence my explanation for my silence online. But I hope that silence will end soon.

Hold tight everyone. We’re almost done!

I am tired. It’s a tired that only my week long residency can produce.  I’m toward the tail end of it now and I’m excited about the possibilities of the semester.

But this residency is different, extremely different from the last two. This is the residency where I was faced with my demons.

I knew it was coming and that this head on collision would be my test — fight or flight. I’m still making up my mind about that. So what’s the demon? What’s making me consider not continuing down this path I so longed to be a part of.

I’m afraid of succeeding.

Yes, I know it’s cliche. Extremely, textbook cliche but it’s true. I’ve talked about how I’ve come across scenes in my writing that have made me stop writing for a few days. I’ve written through the fear and I’ve written about the fear but this time, I’m not sure if the written word will cure it.

I’m afraid that after my MFA, I will be come a master storyteller. That I will be read. That people will like what I have to say and that I will do well.

I’m scared shitless and I don’t know what to do about it.

So far during my program, my writing has been compared to Garcia-Marquez, Allende, and Castillo. I’ve read twice this residency and each time my fellow students and faculty have commented on how great it was…how strong the voice is…how much they enjoyed my piece…how it would be part of a bigger piece. Each class, each assignment, each interaction with faculty reminds me how close I am to achieving my goal. It’s like smelling cookies baking in the oven. They’re almost done. I’ve started my 3 out of 4 semesters, I’m almost done.

I realized why I’m still a reporter after all these years, after the pain and experience of American journalism. Most people would have left. Most people would have found another job. I know it’s for two reasons: 1.) I’m meant to write so I’m wired a certain way 2.) Being a reporter allows me the freedom of boundaries. I don’t have to feel. Sometimes, I don’t have to care. I can plug in a formula. I can get away with not slaying the dragon.

And even with know that, the thought of leaving also scares me shitless. I can’t imagine not being in a newsroom. I love being in a newsroom. I love being a reporter when the truth comes down to it. But I also love writing, and reading. Can those two co-exist? Can I stop hiding behind the reporter cap long enough to embrace the fear and face just the possibility of being successful?

Only time will tell. And right now, that scares me too.

For those lover of books or for those curious about what I’ll be reading this semester. Here’s the list!

Today’s post is to set the record straight on several items that have been rattling in my brain for a longtime — my Latinaness, essentially my identity as a writer and a person.

When I started this journey three years ago to find out who I was, I should have known that part of that journey would dispel some of the theories I was conditioned accept. These theories I accepted as fact for so long.

So what’s the theory? All Latinos are created equal. Truth? They aren’t.

We are all bound by language and customs. We have the same values. Most of us are Catholics. Most of us know the sting of a chancelta.

But that is where it all ends my friends because I am AfroLatina. My skin is darker, my hair coarser, my hips wider. I am made of different stuff and that makes me different. And that has taken me more than 30 years to accept, painfully.

When it comes to other racial or ethnic groups demeaning my fellow Latinos, such as the folks at Top Gear or the folks who developed these marvels of modern technology, they are poking fun at Mexicans and their diaspora here in the U.S.  Appalling since no other group is superior to another and has no right to take their viewpoints this far. Are they jokes? Yes they are but don’t jokes turn into stereotypes which makes it harder for that group to overcome once they achieve levels of affluence?

Despite these deplorable examples of modern racism, I can’t help but feel a detachment. That’s because the same folks who are being demoralized are the same ones that give me “the look” that’s suppose to put me in my place. They are from the same country that not only doesn’t recognize that it INDEED has black people but also allows them to ONLY be housemaids on their novelas and looks at interracial marriage with disdain.

At one point in my life, I would have been outraged about the Top Gear situation as if it was about me. After all, I grew up in Houston and am considered by most folks more Mexican than Mexicans, though I am of Cuban and Guatemalan heritage. But now, I am outraged not because I am Latina but because I am a person.

You see, not all Latinos are created equal. One of our own magazines, Latina, features lighter skinned Latinas on its cover 95 percent of the time. When it does have an Afro Latina, it’s because Zoe Saldana or Christina Millian is promoting their latest project. (Zoe who plays primarily African American roles and Christina who sings pop and, if you didn’t know she was Latina, is claimed by African Americans as “one of ours.”)

How can we as a people expect folks to not make game applications about border crossings if we can’t even acknowledge our own brown folks as brown? How do you expect AfroLatinos like me to fight the good right along with our fellow brown sisters and brothers when we’re only claimed for the purposes of numbers?  When times are good, we’re made fun for our accents, our hair,  and the fact that we speak with our hands by the very people who want company in rallies and marches. We are looked at as the exotic Latinos, the exceptions not the rule. We’re Latino by circumstance and not really regarded by most as an actual brown person.

What does this have to do with writing? Tons. Part of writing is learning and figuring out who you are. Identity has fueled writers for centuries. It’s why we write what we write and sometimes the how of writing.

So yes, all Latinos are not created equal. We are barely labeled the same. I may get some negative backlash from this but I don’t care. It needed to be said and acknowledged. Sometimes ignoring the issue for the greater cause creates another cause later on.

So I want to hear from y’all. What do you think? Who disagrees? Let’s have an open discussion about this. I think it’s about time.