(originally published May 2021) May 8, 1959 is a day that Rachel Cantu will never forget. It’s the day Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies forcibly evicted her family from their grandparents’ home in the Palo Verde neighborhood of Chavez Ravine. The media had turned out in force, so there are lots of photos from that day….
(originally published May 2021) My mother always wore her hair short. Really short. It looked fantastic on her with her high cheekbones and high-bridged nose. Then I was scrolling online and saw one of those clickbait galleries that show you what a famous person would look like today. Love those! My big takeaway is how…
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…
