Los zapaticos de... Bala Cynwyd?
What was this most Cuban of books doing in this decidedly not-Cuban suburb of Philadelphia? The only reasonable explanation was that it was a message (of encouragement, I hope) from my grandmother, from the great beyond!
The Feisty Side of Cuba
Whereas Occidente (Western Cuba) was the economic and cultural powerhouse of the island - the domain of the great sugar planters and the cosmopolitan merchants of Havana - Oriente (Eastern Cuba) was a relative backwater, downright barbaric in the eyes of occidentales, with its petty landowners, its indecorous mixing of the races, and its annoying revolutionary fervor.
Why the 1890s?
I was moved by the palpable sense of hope, the grand vision for the future Cuban republic with the new century on the horizon, and the sudden and anticlimactic way it came to an end with the intervention and occupation of the United States.
The Family Mystery That Inspired the Novel (part 2)
In 2017, my aunt contacted a man who appeared as a second cousin on Ancestry.com. To our surprise, he replied that he’d heard rumors that his great-grandmother, Carmen, had abandoned a baby girl named Mirta in a Havana hospital in the early 20s.
The Family Mystery That Inspired the Novel (part 1)
My grandmother Mirta longed to know who she was and where she came from. She died in 2008 at 85 years old, never knowing who her mother was.
A Graveyard for My Darlings
“Murder your darlings” is perhaps the most disturbing advice proffered to newbie novelists. If you’re not in this illustrious category, you might be understandably befuddled. Basically, it means don’t get too attached to anything you write — characters, storylines, highfalutin prose — because chances are you’ll have to cut it.