A month or so ago, my third novel, Marcelo in the Real World was accepted for publication by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic. Cheryl Klein, my editor, was going to be busy during the month of July with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (also published by Arthur A. Levine and Scholastic) and so we agreed to postpone our initial meeting until early August . (I can’t for the life of me understand why Harry should take precedence over Jasmine, but what do I know!) Jasmine, however, is going to need some revisions and so this interlude between acceptance of the book and figuring out what those revisions will be has been helpful to me. So, besides waiting to see what happens to Harry with just about the rest of humanity, I have been busy (or unbusy) painting stones. On the shores of Singer Island in Florida where I vacation with my family, you find these flat stones the range in diameter from the size of a quarter to that of a small and badly-made pancake. The stones are cool to the touch and gray. They have been smoothed by time and sand and sea. Many of these stones have a hole made God only knows how. (I suspect there is a scientific explanation for the hole but I don’t want to find out. I like my own image of generations of tiny amoeba drilling through eons.) These stones, which I love collecting in my walks, make great gifts. You attach them to a piece of leather or gold chain (depending on the recipient) and there you are. I here confess to being slightly hurt when I see the forced smile on my nieces and nephews as I hand over to them a Christmas-wrapped small box that rattles. Now these stones are perfect just as they have come into the world. I, however, feel compelled to ruin them by making designs on them. I have a shoebox full of paints and indelible magicmarkers with names of colors I have never heard before. The designs I paint on these helpless stones are abstract and can best be described as “Mexican-Mandala.” I start of trying to make a Mandala (like the stone glass windows that you see in the front or back of a cathedral), but I soon make a mistake and then proceed to “redeem” the design painting some a happy fiesta of dotted colors. Why I think that painting stones is the right thing to do during this time of preparation (and anticipation) prior to the revisions to Jasmine is this: I paint stones in silence and my mind slowly attunes itself again and rejoices in the simple act of attention, as if this were the mind’s most natural and happy state. There is in the miniscule and detailed motions of my hands precision enough to require concentration but the object of concentration is playful enough so that it can be carried out with abandon. I care about the process not the results and in this there is, as in all true play, an element of freedom. (I am grateful for the humble stones and the willingness to so sacrifice their beauty for me.) This place inside my mind that I find as I paint my stones is a place where images and dialogues and even thoughts sometimes come to visit (and sometimes stay). They come and visit as if they were coming home – the way aunts and uncles and cousins and neighbors used to come to my grandfather’s house in Tampico when I was a child. They came to sit in the shade of mango and avocado trees and to feel the evening breeze of the gulf of Mexico and they stayed for the pleasure of being with each other.Â
July 19, 2007
June 11, 2007
Recent Awards
Behind the Eyes recently named one of 14 Commended Titles for 2006 for the Americas Award. The Americas Award is given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction (fro picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. By combining both and liniing the Americas, the award reaches beyond geographic borders, as well as multicultural-international boundaries, focusing instead upon cultural heritages within the hemisphere. The award is sponsored by the national Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs. The award winners and commended titles are selected for their 1)distinctive literary quality; 2)cultural contextualization; 3)exceptional integration of text, illustration and design; and 4) potential for classroom use. The winning books will be honored at a ceremony (tentatively October 6, 2007) at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
For more information on the Americas Award please see www.uwm.edu/Dept/CLACS/outreach/americas.htmlÂ
Behind the Eyes was also selected for inclusion in the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2007. This list, now in its 78th year of publication, selects the best of the previous year’s publishing for teenagers, 12 to 18 years old. All the titles chosen were read by young adult librarians and recommended for this special publication. See www.nypl.org Â
And last but not least, Behind the Eyes was inducted into the Teens Read Too Hall of Fame! See: www.Teensreadtoo.com
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April 17, 2007
On Being a Latino Writer
At a recent conference at Rutger’s University, one of the students asked me if I ever felt restricted by being a Latino writer. Funny that the first thing that came to my mind was to say that I did not consider myself a Latino Writer. I went on to say that the main characters in my novels were Latino and that I thought that the main characters in all future novels would be Latino (more specifically, Chicanos or persons of Mexican ancestry) and in that sense reflect issues peculiar to the Latino community in the United States. But later, on the long train ride back to Boston, I reflected on my answer. I’m not really sure what I would call myself. I was born in Mexico of two Mexican parents (later adopted by Charles Stork, a naturalized American citizen born in Holland). I came to the United States when I was nine and have been here ever since. I have one remaining aunt (on my mother’s side) and two cousins left in Mexico. I suppose then that I fit under the definitiion of a Latino writer. Why then the quick negative response? It wasn’t a negative, defensive, I’m-offended kind of response. I am very proud of my heritage and culture and the peculiar tugs and pulls that course through my veins by virtue of my birthplace, my native language, my genes, my culture and history. The quick response, I think, was due to a flash interpretation that the question “do you feel limited as a Latino writer” meant “do you feel constrained to write about “Latino issues” whatever they may be. And my “I don’t consider myself a Latino Writer” answer really meant: I don’t feel that I should or that I am only able to write or that I am somehow for the sake of publication, more inclined to write about “Latino issues.” Latino issues are what? The alienation and disenfranchisement of immigrants; stories that describe the food we eat and the fiestas we celebrate? I think that if I want to be a good Latino writer I have to be a good writer first. My interest is the human soul and the human condition. My main characters will be Latino but they haven’t always been poor people struggling to survive across the border. Some of them have been successful individuals who like many other successful individuals have come to realize that success is not all it is cracked up to be. Whatever good I can achieve for the social problems that affect Latinos will come as a result of being a good writer – someone who portrays Latino characters as believable human beings. To recognize ourselves in the soul of another – isnt’t that a good to be valued? And so yes, I am a Latino writer although I don’t see myself as one. And yes, I would like my books to be read and perhaps to inspire young Latino kids because many of them are like me and many of them need good role models, but still, I’m just someone trying to tell a good story and, if I’m fortunate, maybe I will bring a flicker, glimmer of truth and beauty to our world.
