1. What inspired you to write your first book?
I’m not sure I’d call it inspiration. It was more a need, a desperate emotional and physical need. My youngest sister 
had been murdered, her killer at large for over twenty years. When he was finally arrested, I began to unravel. I needed a form of expression that worked for me. I needed to understand what had gone so horribly, terribly wrong in my sister’s life and the life of my large family. The Thirty-Ninth Victim began as a search for understanding, nothing more. With the guidance of two master teachers, Robert Ray and Jack Remick, the personal writing morphed into a memoir, and I found myself with a book in my hands.
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2. Writing can be a difficult job. What inspires you to keep going?
I don’t think of it as a job. I know there are many who teach the importance of seeing yourself as an entrepreneur, building a platform, learning marketing skills. Without a doubt all of that is important if selling books is the writer’s primary goal, but the writing itself has to come first or there are no books to sell. For me, writing is a passion. It’s a tool to explore my inner and outer worlds. It’s how I make sense of this crazy world we live in.
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3. What are you working on now? What’s next?
Running Secrets is the first book in The Alki Trilogy. The second, Biking Uphill, is finished and currently going through the Booktrope editing and design process. I’m working on the third book, Walking Alki. In The Alki Trilogy, a diverse cast of characters face and embrace the challenges of race and immigration, family and friendship on Alki Beach in West Seattle. That said, the books are stand-alone reads that can be enjoyed in any order.
What’s next? I’m toying with a story of friendship between three ex-pats living in Mexico City in the early 1980s, each married to a Mexican national at that time, each later divorced. I’m not sure whether I’ll call it a true-life novel or a fictionalized memoir or what. For now I’m just calling it The Ex-Mexican Wives’ Club.
Visit the site…
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4. What’s your writing process, schedule or routine?
I could use more routine, but every time I get in a groove, something seems to rock the boat. That something being life, I suppose. I teach ESL full-time at a local community college, so I have a lot more writing time between quarters and during summer breaks. That said, I write all my first drafts in timed-writing practice, pen to paper, working against a clock, usually at a table with other dedicated writers sharing the practice, sometimes alone at a coffee shop or my dining room table. I fill notebooks with scenes and ideas, and then I find time to key the work into a draft manuscript, a constantly changing scene list, and individual character profiles. I’d like to pretend my typing and editing schedule is as well defined as the three timed-writing groups I participate in each week, but that’s just not the case. Instead, I look at my calendar on a weekly basis and book appointments with my computer. Together we piece stories together.
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5. Who is your favorite book character of all time? Why?
I don’t have favorites. I avoid favorites. My favorites are usually whatever I’m currently involved with, whether it be a character or book, a musician or song, an actor or movie. I just don’t do favorites.
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6. What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Be passionate. Be persistent. Put in the seat time and forget about the money. A writer needs seat time – time to think, to write, to key in, to read, to rewrite, to edit and to keep the cycle churning without too many, too long interruptions. Find a group of like-minded people to write with who share your passion for putting words on the page. Write together, read together, but avoid at all cost the mistake of critiquing too soon. (Some aspiring writers may be interested in reading Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones.)
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7. What’s your favorite quote?
I suppose I’ve already given you a sense of how I feel about choosing favorites. I do, however, have two magnetized quotes on my refrigerator door. The first reads: Trust yourself. You know more that you think you do. The second: What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? And a wise mentor and friend sent me this: If you want to achieve greatness, stop asking for permission. I like all of them. And many, many more.
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8. Who would you most like to have a cup of coffee with? (dead or alive)
I’ve lost a number of special people in my life including my youngest sister, both parents, and a number of dear friends. I’d love to have a chance to speak with each of them, to say all those things I failed to say before it was too late, to ask the questions that will remain forever unanswered.
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9. What is your biggest pet peeve?
People who move to the Pacific Northwest and complain constantly and continuously about the gray skies and rain. What? You didn’t know?
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10. Tell us something quirky about you.
I asked my husband if there was anything quirky about me. He cracked up laughing. He laughed until his face turned red and tears streamed down his cheeks. When he could finally speak, he said, “If everything about you is quirky, what stands out?” So, I guess I’ll just leave that as my answer.
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11. Favorite comfort food?
Okay, I know I said I don’t do favorites, but chocolate, well chocolate is chocolate. It can’t be considered a favorite because it belongs in a special class all by itself, beyond comparison. Rich, dark chocolate. Pure and simple.
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12. Star Wars or Star Trek?
Neither. No Sci Fi interest whatsoever. In fact, my husband says I’m culturally-deprived, American popular culture anyway. (Maybe that’s one of the quirky things he laughed his head off about when I asked his input on #10.) I grew up without television and then spent most of my twenties living in Venezuela and Mexico. I never owned a television until I reached my mid-thirties, and by then, pop culture had left me behind with huge information gaps. What was the question? Star Wars or Star Trek? Huh? There’s a difference?
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13. Sunrises or Sunsets?
That’s an easy one: Sunrises. A new day dawns full of opportunities and adventures, each a treasured gift. On those special days when the sky fills with pinks, purples and oranges, you just know something wonderful is going to happen. And it always does if I keep my heart open.
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