It’s been the month of Carnaval, the month of new connections, and the month that begins the hey-look-at-me prelude to the release of my new book.

Let’s start with hey, look at me! My new book, my fourth book of fiction, comes out September 29, 2026. That’s eight months of me saying pre-order my book! And then many more months of me saying buy my book! I’ll try not to be obnoxious about it. I’ll try to be cool, creative and entertaining. Failing that, I’ll just be relentlessly, but pleasantly ordinary about it.

About mid-month, Regal House Publishing announced the pre-order link, and I posted it to my social media sites, so consider this one more of the three to seven times a person needs to be exposed to a marketing message before they act upon it. Or ten to twenty times if I’m a complete unknown to you. And if I am, you can learn a little bit about me on the Regal House bio page.

I am immensely grateful to the wonderful writers who have supported this book with a blurb. Over the next months, I’ll be sharing the generous words of Erica Bauermeister, Tara Conklin, Alex Espinoza, Caitlin Horrocks, Jen Soriano, and Rachel Swearingen about Ofelia and Norma. I adore their work and if you don’t already know their brilliance, you are missing out bigtime.

◊◊◊

I missed all of Carnaval—the parades, the Batalla de las Flores, the selection of the god and goddess, the burning of the giant boquerón (anchovy) on the beach, and the chirigotas— because poor James was in the hospital with pneumonia and I was there spending the days and sometimes the nights with him. But thanks to my Spanish conversation group, Las Charlatanas, which I wrote about last month, I did experience some of the spirit of Carnaval. For our early February meeting we watched and discussed videos of chirigotas, choral groups that perform original songs that are often satirical and that address a current political or social issue or entity. These groups perform in the streets during Carnaval but also participate in a formal competition on a theater stage. The chirigota that captivated us the most was one from Cádiz about Trump, though he goes unnamed in the song. I’m sharing it here because even if you know just a little bit of Spanish you can pick out these recognizable, relevant words and understand the overall message:

violencia, insolencia, dictador, traición, injusticia, fiesta secretas                    niñas menores, vanidad, un verdadero H.D.P. (hijo de puta)

◊◊◊

In the last few days of January, I went to Barcelona to submit my application for a Mexican passport at the Mexican Consulate there. I qualify as a Mexican citizen through descent, and I received my Acta de Nacimiento over a year ago. Now I feel quite official with a passport. While in Barcelona I visited the Moco Museum and saw street art by Bansky and Basquiat as well as magical immersive installations such as the one below called Diamond Matrix by Studio Irma. Moco was one of my favorite museum experiences.

From Barcelona I decided to go to Valencia, a city I’ve wanted to visit for a while. It was a brief visit with two major highlights. First was a visit to the Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero, housed in a former medieval palace, where I was stunned to tears by works by Anselm Kiefer. There was also an amazing video work by Mark Collishaw, which recalls the chariot races of the Roman Empire and the brutal use of humans and animals for spectacle.

The second highlight was meeting in person a friend I’d connected with online as a result of our sharing the same publisher. Sion Dayson is the author of As a River, published in 2019 by Jaded Ibis Press, a year before my book Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories came out from the same press. She has transitioned from writer to voiceover artist, and you can learn about both of her passions on her website.

We had a lovely dinner at a cozy restaurant near the beach and delightful conversation. Sion was the vibrant, perceptive, compassionate person I imagined her to be based on our messaging and social media interactions. Here’s a reel from her Instagram page where she’s dancing in a Carnaval celebration in her neighborhood. I shared a meal with that vividness and joy during my visit to Valencia.

On a recent trip to Madrid, I attended a meet-up of writers to celebrate the second anniversary of the European Writers Salon which was holding celebratory gatherings in multiple cities around Europe. It was another EWS opportunity to meet other writers. Among those I met was an Argentinian who had also traveled from Málaga for the event. So now I know another writer in the city where I live, which I am thrilled about.

I met yet another writer through Las Charlatanas. Our most recent meeting was at the Museo Ruso to view the photographic exhibit by Marisa Flórez about the years 1970-2020, documenting moments and events in Spain’s recent history. To help us understand the events better and to provide context from her own knowledge and experience, Charlatana Nancy invited her friend Carmen who was a teenager during the seventies and experienced the transition from the Franco years to democracy in Spain.

The first photo of the exhibit, enlarged to mural proportions, depicted reporters trying to listen to the proceedings of the Unión de Centro Democrático on the other side of the partition. The UCD was a coalition of political parties that was formed in 1977 to help steer the transition to democracy. The coalition began to disband in 1982, the year this photo was taken.

This photo is titled “Mujeres” and shows women in Yeserias Prison. It was where political prisoners were held during the Franco years and was later a women’s prison until 1991.

This truck is carrying Guernica by Picasso which was commissioned by the Spanish Republic in 1937. After it toured Europe and the United States to raise funds for the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War Guernica, it was housed in MOMA in New York. Picasso had set the condition that the painting could not reside in Spain until democracy had been reestablished. It was finally delivered to Spain in 1981.

We spent two hours at the exhibit of 184 images with Carmen answering our many questions with generosity and grace.

Afterwards, we had lunch at a restaurant near the beach where I learned that Carmen writes flash fiction in Spanish which she then translates into English. She has a collection that she is readying for publication. So yay, for knowing another writer! We ended the afternoon with drinks on the terrace of a café on a beautiful sunny day.

And to end this month, hey, look at Malaya, all dressed up for Dia de Andalucia!