The Monsters of Chavez Ravine will always be my favorite “book child,” so I was thrilled when it won the International Latino Book Awards Gold Award for Best Novel Fantasy/Sci-Fi English. Here’s why it’s such a big deal to me: I’m an independently published author who began writing full-time later in life, after a career…
(originally published April 2021) The monsters in my urban fantasy novella, The Monsters of Chavez Ravine, are many and come in different shapes and sizes, but the one that first popped into my head was Dog Face Bride. I’ve been thinking about it since I was a kid. Thank you, Grandma Chata. Whenever I asked…
(originally published April 2021) One day, I was scrolling on Twitter and came across a tweet I found fascinating. A young traditionally published author announced in very bold terms she does not italicize Korean words in her novels. In fact, she said she REFUSED. Another author chimed in. This woman is Latina, like me. She…
(originally published March 2021) There is a character in my urban fantasy novella, The Monsters of Chavez Ravine, nicknamed Ripper. The residents of the old neighborhoods of Palo Verde, Bishop, and La Loma were big on nicknames. In photographer Don Normark’s stunning book, Chavez Ravine 1949: A Los Angeles Story, he includes two pages of…
(originally published March 2021) In my urban fantasy novella set in the hills above Los Angeles, a doctor from Chinatown makes several house calls to the injured residents living in Chavez Ravine. Chinatown is a little over one mile away, and less than five minutes by car without traffic. I don’t know how many Mexican…
(originally published March 2021) When I started writing this novella, I did not consciously set out to bust Latina stereotypes. You know the ones I’m talking about because they’re popular in movies and TV shows: the maid, the fiery-tempered Latina, the Latina who wears tight clothes and shows lots of cleavage. Then there is the…
(originally published March 2021) While monstrous things happened to bring about the end of the neighborhoods of Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop, “The Monsters of Chavez Ravine,” is a work of fiction. The characters and creatures are the products of my imagination and while the backstory of the eminent domain evictions follows the general…
(originally published July 2020) My mother and her family lived in Chavez Ravine. It’s the place where Dodger Stadium now sits, just north of downtown Los Angeles. Before the bulldozers arrived, it was a tight-knit community of mostly working class Mexican American families. The Castaneda’s lived in the Palo Verde neighborhood on Bishops Road in…
