Why did you choose to sponsor the San Diego Writers Festival?
I chose to sponsor the San Diego Writer’s Festival because of my history with Marni and my gratitude for all she and her workshops have done for me. When I put my wishes and dreams out there, they came to me. I first met Marni at the La Jolla Writer’s Conference. Later, I learned about Writers Ink and took Marni’s ten-month memoir course. My story became fictional memoir based on my life. I sold my house in LA a year ago, and this is my chance to give back.
What have SD Writers Inc. and the International Memoir Writers Association taught you about writing?
I learned so much from Marni’s course, and she gave me helpful advice. Later, I had some coaching sessions with her for the New Orleans novel I’m featuring at the festival. Through Marni, I met Tracy Jones and hired Tracy to be my editor. Marni is such a special person. She could be getting rich writing Hollywood movies and TV shows, but instead, she wants to help other women and men achieve their dreams. Her heart is totally in it.
In fact, she gave me the idea for my new company name and logo. Marni helped me come up with the name Heart to Heart. I just got my logo samples back and it’s exciting. I have found a business-oriented woman, Cynthia Holiday, with all the skills I’m lacking. We will conduct workshops called “Putting it in the Past: Life Writing.” I have a dream to help people, especially women and teenagers, write their life stories to help them heal from their pasts. I have a belief that when we write something down, we can stop ruminating about it and finally let it go. There is so much healing that needs to be done.
Can you tell us briefly what your book is about and why you wrote it?
The book I am featuring, Crimes and Impunity in New Orleans,is actually my second book. I wrote the first book, Secrets and Lies in El Salvador, because it had been in my heart for over thirty years. The woman who did my book cover for Secrets and Lies asked if there was any chance I was going to do any more books with the same character. I said, “Yeah, I definitely have one, a story based in New Orleans” . . . which is how Crimes and Impunity in New Orleans came about and became the prequel to Secrets and Lies in El Salvador.
I lived in New Orleans for seven years; it was a wild, roller-coaster of a ride. I knew I wanted to write the story about my involvement in the anti-war movements in El Salvador and Nicaragua, my visits by the FBI, and my crazy jobs with crazy bosses. The main character, Shelley, does represent me and my experiences from twenty-three to thirty years old. Through sharing the stories, I want to help create peace and understanding in the world.
Will you please share some lines from one of your favorite passages in the book?
This is a passage beginning on the first page of Chapter 5 when Shelley first gets to New Orleans. There’s no place on this earth like New Orleans with her mixture of history and people. From the local people to Americans from all different places to people from all different countries, there’s an openness that you don’t find anywhere else in the world. This excerpt starts on the first page of Chapter 5.
As I step clumsily off the train, the steamy heat of New Orleans takes my breath away. Before I can grab my suitcase, the tall, black porter picks it up and says, “Which way, miss?” My eyes dart around, noting colorful clothing on people of every shade of skin color from porcelain to obsidian.
I don’t know. Thank you anyway, but I can get it,” I tell him, but he refuses to give me back my bag, so I’m in and out of the station before I can even think. I reach for my purse, but the porter says, “No miss, you use that money to buy you some cool clothes.” I look down at myself and wonder if he can see the sweat pouring down my back. Hopefully he is just being nice.
“Enjoy your stay in Nawlins,” he calls to me as he walks back into the station. I smile, grateful for his help but wondering what to do now.
What are you most looking forward to for the 2022 festival?
There is so much I’m looking forward to: meeting other authors and going to workshops. I want to go to all the workshops and events. My business partner and I are going to be there with our author’s booth. I feel fortunate to have connections with different people in the memoir group who I look forward to seeing there. When their memoirs come out, I read them; we support each other. Writing my first book put me in a lifestyle that I always imagined being in. My book came out in 2020 during the pandemic so it was difficult to get it out into the world. I am grateful that the Writers Festival has given me an opportunity to expose more readers to the book through my sponsorship interview and my author’s booth.
Do you have an idea for a next book? If so, what is it about?
Now I’m writing Love and Loss in Upstate NY. Shelly leaves El Salvador and returns home to New York. She is pregnant and marries an El Salvadorian. I never had kids, so that part is completely fictional. It’s been a challenge to figure out what it was like back then in NY. I’m having to do a little bit more research. Shelly is going to go back to school and finish her degree. She’ll eventually get a job in San Diego because she’s bilingual. Shelley will experience my personal stories of teaching high school students and hearing about their heartbreaking, beautiful lives. The series will keep going. I’m always writing notes on the next book.
