Skip to main content

Author Guest Post - Belinda Acosta

Readers, please join me welcoming Author Belinda Acosta who will be guest blogging here today!

PhotobucketOn how Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz came to be:

When I was contacted about writing a series on quinceañeras I had just reviewed Julia Alvarez’s nonfiction book, Once Upon a Quinceañera for The Austin Chronicle. So, the subject was in high on my radar. What intrigued me about the subject was similar to what intrigued Alvarez, I think: What does it mean to be a woman today? Is there something about the Latina experience that is unique? Why have a ritual to mark this “passage”? Where did the tradition stem from? And on and on and on. I find it amusing that I did not have a quinceañera, I had never been to one prior to writing this book, and I don’t have any children. I do know, from first hand experience, how complicated the relationship between mothers and daughters can be. Part of what makes Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz stand out is that it focuses on that relationship—the good and the bad, hopefully, with heart and candor.

PhotobucketOn writing and writers I admire:
My two writing heroes are Flannery O’Connor and Harper Lee. I have great respect for Lorna Dee Cervantes, Wendall Berry, Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Helena Maria Viramontes, Lorraine Lopez, Alex Espinosa, Luis Alberto Urrea, Manuel Muñoz, and many others. When I was younger, I was trying to mimic O’Connor, which is hilarious—a Midwest Chicana going southern gothic? But I love that I tried. Ultimately, what I take from all the writers I admire is an appreciation for the beauty of their prose. I revel in a well-written sentence, a lovely image, and words that make you want to lift them from the page and examine them like tiny stones. I like to think that all of them influence me in some way, but that somehow, I’ve happened upon my own style.  I hope I’ve outgrown my mimicking days. For one thing, I don’t have time! But I also think it’s a common thing among young writers. Except for those few savants out there, I think writers spend a long time in their journeyman years, experimenting, mimicking, reading, writing, failing, waiting, giving up and finally learning what kind of writer we want to be.

Thank you for that entertaining post, dear Author! Readers, your thoughts / comments are most welcome.

About the Author:
Belinda Acosta works as a journalist in Austin, Texas, writing reviews and features on books, film, and the arts, in addition to a weekly column on television (TV Eye) for the Austin Chronicle. Her work has appeared in Poets & Writers, Latino USA, Latino Magazine, AlterNet and other publications. She was a Michener Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin where she received her MFA in Writing in 1997. Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz (Grand Central Publishing, August 2009) is her first novel.

Useful URLs:
http://qclubbooks.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/La-quinceanera-club-books-de-Belinda-Acosta/137625675297
http://tinyurl.com/cmwks3

______________________________________________________________________
If you like this post, then please consider subscribing to my Full Feed RSS.
You can also Subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Comments

  1. I loved this guest spot! I just participated in her blog tour! Great book!

    xoxo Amy (Park-Avenue Princess)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to like, subscribe and comment...

Popular posts from this blog

Gabrielle Bernstein stops by...

I'm happy to welcome Gabrielle Bernstein who's once again stopping by here with a guest blog post. Her second book Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles  was published by Random House September 12. It’s part memoir and part road map: Gabby shares her journey toward becoming the full-on, inspirational Spirit Junkie that she is today, and she teaches her readers every lesson she learned along the way. BECOME A SPIRIT JUNKIE

Gerard de Marigny stops by...

Today I'm happy to welcome Gerard de Marigny , author of The Watchman of Ephraim , who's guest blogging here today. About the Book - Aref Sami Zamani is planning a terrorist attack on American soil - codenamed "Antioch," a plot to detonate a nuke over the city of Las Vegas. The Watchman uncovers a connection between Zamani and a Mexican drug cartel but their agent goes missing before they can learn more. That's because Zamani has a spy working for The Watchman. Strange events start to unfold near the Nogales border crossing. References are discovered to something the Mexicans are calling "Noche Del Espantada" ...Fright Night," but can it mean something else? Why I Write Thrillers

Review - Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer

Sourcebooks Casablanca, 368p, ISBN:1402238797 To say that the beautiful and tempestuous Lady Serena is highly upset to find that her recently deceased (and highly eccentric) father, the Earl of Spenborough, left the care of her fortune and control over her marriage to her jilted fiancé Ivo Barrasford, the Marquis of Rotherham, is to understate the case. Too much time has elapsed since Serena broke her engagement to her childhood companion, Rotherham, (and that too after the invitations had been sent - such a scandal !) for them to feel anything but discomfort at this bit of posthumous matchmaking on the part of the Earl. Or so they both declare. Used to commanding a large household and having acted as her father's hostess from a young age, energetic and politically-savvy Serena soon finds herself in doldrums when her life is suddenly reduced to a small Dower house with none but her father's young widow, Fanny, for company and a social sphere consisting of occasional visi