Writings
We spend our lives pursuing happiness and meaning, but often end up repeating old mistakes. Understanding why we do this is the first step to change and healing.
While writing my memoir The Conquest of Pleasure (upcoming Fall 2022 at She Writes Press), I have figured out the hardest riddles of my life: why I kept sabotaging myself and the people I loved, what parts of me stayed hidden behind an impenetrable wall, and how deeply the roots of trauma infiltrated everything I did.
My memoir traces my journey from repression to liberation, mirroring Spain’s journey from dictatorship to democracy. I hope it will offer you, dear reader, some insights into the complexity of your own life, and encourage you to reclaim your whole, beautiful, imperfect self.
I’m also working on a collection of personal essays about the many things we leave behind. Growth and loss are interconnected, but it’s not always easy to let go. (Take a peek at the collection with this story about an irresistible dress, published in The Penmen Review.)
Aside from writing, I help other people and companies tell their stories as a ghostwriter, editor and writing coach.
Personal Essays / Memoir
My Books and I
Chicago Quarterly Review
Chosen as Notable Essay by Best American Essays, 2019 edition
“If you could have lifted the roof of my house when I was growing up, you would have often found twelve people in the living room, each with their nose buried in a book, and nobody talking to each other.”
The Dress
The Penmen Review
It was turquoise green with black side panels—a simple sheath in stretchy nylon that fit in a fist. When I tried it on I instantly knew it was mine.
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The Thin Black Taste of Summer
Front Porch Journal
“Here, your allowance.” Mom gives me two and half pesetas, like every Saturday afternoon when we are in San Julián.
“Gracias!” I rush upstairs to put one and a half pesetas in my nightstand, hidden under my journal. The other peseta I keep in my pocket.
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Building Friendships After Fifty
Better After Fifty
It had come to this: I wanted friends, and I was ready to spend money to get them.
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A Purposeful Life is a Brave Life
Wisdom Well
Four years ago, at 57, I quit my plum corporate job to have more time for writing. Everybody said it took a lot of courage, but I knew I still harbored many fears.
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‘Mis libros y yo’: por una biblioteca minimalista
La Vanguardia
La autora cuenta como sus libros sobrevivieron a mudanzas y relaciones hasta sucumbir bajo la influencia de Marie Kondo y dar paso a otros nuevos, en este texto aparecido en la ‘Chicago Quaterly Review’.
Si hubieras podido levantar el techo de mi casa durante mi infancia, habrías encontrado a doce personas en la sala, cada una con la nariz enterrada en un libro y sin decirse una palabra.
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Other Popular Essays
Bees and Monsters: Politics, Democracy, and Symbolism in ‘The Ardent Swarm’ and ‘The Spirit of the Beehive’
Newfound.org
Despite four decades, a continent, and a language separating the creation of two powerful works of art, the new novel “The Ardent Swarm” by Tunisian Yamen Manai and the classic Spanish film from 1973 “The Spirit of the Beehive” by director Víctor Erice share many crucial elements: setting, plot, symbols, and cultural and literary traditions.
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Review of artist Martivon Galindo
Abstract Magazine TV
From fragmentation to integration: the evolution of Martivón Galindo’s inner world and artistic expression
One of the first things that hits you when you look at Salvadoran artist Martivón Galindo’s works is her complex representation of female figures. Women fill the frame with their spine cracked open from top to bottom.
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My Books
Juego de Voces
Ediciones Navegante, 1997.
Mercè Rodoreda: Una bibliografia crítica.
Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2003. (Fundació Mercè rodoreda Award.)
