Thanks and Appreciation Goes to . . .

I'm writing this in my hotel room in NYC on the morning of my departure back to Los Angeles.  I came to Manhattan to attend the 15th annual International Latino Book Awards with no expectations, even though I was pleased that my book was a finalist in two categories.  My competitors are skilled writers.  

The picture to your right was taken after I received my first award. The Sandoval Sisters' Secret of Old Blood took home first place for Best Historical Fiction and Best First Book.  There are many people who helped and encouraged me, but I want to focus on The Latino Author site this morning.

Authors still have to do a lot of their own marketing: we often have to beg for reviews.  Imagine my surprise this past January when a venue I had not yet contacted (euphemism for beseeched, pleaded, nagged) included me in their list of top 10 books for 2012.  Not only that, The Latino Author slotted me into a #5 position after best-selling authors Junot Diaz, Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, and Reyna Grande. 

“A brilliantly told story of the Sandoval Sisters and their life journeys during the mid-1800s. The author excellently interweaves much history of the United States and Mexico during that time. The book is written with great skill and talent.”

In some esteemed journals, book reviewers have begun to sound as if they’re walking a tightrope between keeping their jobs and telling the truth about what they really think.  What I like about Corina Martinez Chaudhry’s review in The Latino Author is that she sounds like a  book enthusiast who had an enjoyable read. Her inclusion of my book pumped me up at a time when my confidence was lagging.  My profound gratitude goes to her and The Latino Author for promoting my work.

From The Latino Author site:

What is the goal?

Can you imagine a world without writing, reading, books or being inspired?  Fortunately for us we live in a world of books from inspirational works to literary masterpieces.  It is these very things that inspired us to put this website together. 

•	We wanted to create a one-stop forum with writing tools, techniques, and information for emerging authors!
•	We wanted to inspire authors to write their “masterpiece” to share with the community and the world!
•	We wanted to provide a forum for readers to locate that special book and connect with their favorite author!
•	We wanted to showcase and extend the word on the many Latino authors that have inspired and enlightened us with their literary works and will continue to do so for many years to come!

Corina Martinez Chaudhry with Edward James Olmos

Who are we? A Leadership Team committed to making this forum the “Best-in-Class.”

We have a strong commitment to excellence and to bring more enthusiasm and passion to the Latino/Hispanic literary communities.  Our hope is to assist emerging authors realize their dream of writing and to broaden the sphere of author’s literary works.

Sex and the City in my City: The Girlfriend Movie

Mega-crowds of women in L.A., dressed outlandishly in 4-inch stilettos and toting designer bags, in which they've smuggled pre-mixed Cosmos, are standing in line to see Sex and the City, The Movie.

The film is over two hours long and unlike the television series is a melodrama, rather than a comedy. The writing isn't great and it takes forever to get to the climax. The Manhattan fashion world ­- where freakily skinny females are idolized, as are their ugly handbags - doesn't translate to the big screen as successfully as in, say, The Devil Wears Prada.

But that isn't the point for the women planning to see the movie together. At its heart, it's about girlfriends - their bond, their history together, their view of romance and LOVE. The love is not just for each other, but for Manhattan, which is the studly paramour of all these women.

The narrator of the television series, Carrie Bradshaw, says this: "There are those (relationships) that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."

For many of us, the love given and received with girlfriends is what sustains us through marriage, divorce, teenagers and aging parents.

The Sex and the City phenom is also about Dreams and Youth, and the demarcation into Power and Middle-Youth, a generous description on my part because these babes - Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda - have aged, but not without a fight.

Saw it first with a movie savvy girlfriend. Afterward we sipped Cosmopolitans, and shredded the movie. Waiters stopped by to chat and gave us the inside story on the hordes of women streaming through both before and after the movie, every one in search of the retro, now archetypal, Sex and the City cosmo fix.

Liked the movie more the second time for the unadulterated girlfriend experience. Got to sit in between my two friends, a cool position to experience these girls, both those on screen and the ones next to me. We had cocktails before and closed down a bar after, and we laughed hard and long together. These women know me and still manage to love me.

A good night at the movies.