Share on Tumblr Yesterday, I returned home from New Orleans and my first time to attend Bouchercon, an annual convention dedicated to authors and fans of mystery, suspense, crime fiction. Bouchercon is named for Anthony Boucher, who with a group of volunteers established the first Bouchercon in 1969. It has since grown into a conference […]
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Embracing Our History
Share on Tumblr Today, the National Museum of African American History and Culture ( NMAAHC ), part of the Smithsonian Museums in Washington, DC, opens to the public. I’m looking forward to visiting this institution dedicated to telling the story of a people, their struggles and triumphs. I have written before about the prejudice of members […]
When the Magical Become Real
Share on Tumblr As an adult, my knowledge of Spanish was limited to, “Como esta usted, Sr. Mendez,” a line left over from a conversation from seventh grade. Several years ago I decided I wanted to be fluent in the language of the country south of my own. When I began studying Spanish, one technique […]
Magical Realism: The Magic and the Real
Share on Tumblr Remedios the Beauty represents purity while walking about the Buendía household without wearing a stitch of clothing. Remedios the Beauty, always oblivious to the men who lust after her. And in a magical moment, Remedios the Beauty, while hanging clothes on the line, is suddenly caught up in a brisk wind and ascends into the heavens. […]
Magical Realism and The World of Ava Lavender
Share on TumblrWhile the mother of the narrator of The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender struggles in the throes of labor, crows collect cherry pits to toss at her house and sparrows snatch the strands of hair from women’s heads to weave into their nests. Ava’s birth affects all the birds on her […]
Myths, Folklore and the Child who Melts into the Night
Share on TumblrBefore writing my book, The Island of Lost Children, several times I read the book that inspired it, Peter Pan. One of the sections in J.M. Barrie’s book that intrigued me most was Peter’s explanation of how the lost boys came to be: “They are the children who fall out of their perambulators […]