Sunday, May 07, 2006

Another Amazing Day




Okay, last post that seems "journaly." I have to tell you about today. I had another incredible day at the Book Festival. I had an opportunity to be the facilitator again for Alisa Valdes Rodriguez today.

The last session of the day was a Women's Roundtable speaking to women in the arts and the line-up was a cast of brilliant women. There was Deborah Santana (Santana's wife, author of Space Between the Stars), Esmeralda Santiago (My Turkish Lover and many other great books), Sonia Manzano (Maria from Sesame Street), Cathy Areu (Founder and Editor of Catalina magazine) and Alisa.

This was such a cool line-up of Latina authors. It was incredibly exciting to see all these awesome women together on one stage and to hear them speak about their art and what inspired them to write. Very cool!

As I sat there in the audience listening to them and thinking about my own writing and how I have to get off my butt and write, I also thought about my daughter and how women like these are leaving such a wonderful legacy for our young women. I can't thank them enough for doing that and for encouraging women to do more with their lives and to read. I love that they pointed out the importance of reading in order to become a writer. Having grown up in a house of readers I really believe they go hand in hand.

Thank you to all the authors who were with us this weekend and I look forward to reading more of your words. And thank you to my sisters and my mother who were such great role models of strong women who read!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your amazing feedback/thoughts of the panel. I was as inspired by those other women on the panel as you! I think we all need a good pep talk every now and again.

Thanks again for an amazing blog entry. You're amazing!

Anonymous said...

I also had the experience of hearing A. Valdez on a panel with other women writers at a Women's Conference in La Jolla, California and thoroughly enjoyed it. Very inspiring to young women and older women like me.