October was full of fun encounters on a book tour, but let’s begin with a rant.

The Rant (with nevertheless a saving grace)

There’s something barbaric about an eleven-hour flight across an ocean and a continent in seating so cramped it verges on torture. The torment begins with the big tease when you trundle your carry-on past the first-class carrels that feature luxurious legroom, a comfy seat that swivels, reclines, and makes unnecessary the neck pillows the rest of us dangle from our backpacks. That’s a very civilized way to travel. Even more, it’s healthful and hygienic, the way every passenger should experience long-distance air travel.

But at least I was on the aisle so I could make myself believe that I had a tiny bit of breathing space. That is, until the passenger in front of me reclined his seat so that the movie I was watching was practically against my eyeballs. It was too hard to focus on a movie when my body was restricted to seventeen inches of width and my legs to thirty-two inches, already compromised by the backpack between my feet. I dozed, I read, I watched part of a movie. I shifted in my seat, folding and unfolding my legs, trying to find a few minutes of comfort before shifting again. I got up to pee and wobbled on blood-constricted limbs to the back of the plane and when I was done and exited the toilet, I couldn’t face returning to the misery of that narrow seat which I  decided was inhumane, so I remained in that little square of space behind the last row to just stand and stretch and soon I was joined by my seatmate, a young, congenial woman, and we chatted for a good hour or more, both of us stretching and engaging in impromptu, modified yoga movements. Turns out this young woman was a filmmaker who had just been to a film festival in Andalucia. We talked about films and stories, especially stories about women’s lives. She had noticed I had watched A Promising Young Woman on my seatback screen, and we talk about that and the cost to women who seek justice for sexual assault. And I mentioned the relevance to my new novel Ofelia and Norma, and we bonded in our shared feminism and sisterhood despite the fifty years between us.

Anyway, this encounter was a lifesaver, an essential respite to the confinement of coach class airplane seats. It’s rare that I have conversations on long-flights which seem to engender a turning in and away from the other passengers existing in the same sub-human conditions as if to interact means giving up more space, more of you, around which you have erected an invisible protective shield to maintain the little space you have been granted by the profit-mongering, life-bleeding air travel corporate honchos. Anyway, take a look at Barking Sand Productions. One half of that talented duo is Catalina Cielo, my lovely seatmate and stretching partner on that long flight from London to San Diego. A breath of fresh and feisty air.

The Book Tour

My book tour was also a family and friends reunion tour. My first stop in San Diego was to see my sisters and brother and their families and to catch up on news over meals, because as Virginia Woolf said, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”  Two-thirds of that first sentence applies to me. Sleeping well is a lost cause no matter how well I dine. Anyway, both these photos were taken after a pleasant dining experience.

My sisters and brother have always supported my writing, not just buying my books, but buying them for friends, neighbors, maybe even strangers. “Here, my sister wrote a book, have one,” as if they’re delectable canapés, enthralling bites, which I would argue they are.

Still, it’s always worrisome when anticipating how many people will show up to a book event. At my kick-off event of the tour at Warwick’s Books, I walked in and counted the chairs. How many seats would be filled? Or put another way, how many seats would be empty? It turned out that nearly all the seats were filled. Thanks in large part to my sisters who invited their pickle ball cohort. But there were also people who came because they’d read or heard about the book. One woman told me she came because she’d read the blurb by Alex Espinoza on the front cover. Three women walked into the store to browse, bought my book, and stayed for the reading. And of course, there were old friends whose faces were the source of great elation. The Warwick’s staff were warm and welcoming. They took photos of the event, which was a good and generous thing since I’d forgotten to take photos myself or to designate someone to do so.

A few days later, I was the Monday Mingle author at Hey! Books in downtown San Diego. It’s a small but well-organized space. Anika and Matthew are the friendly owners of this jauntily named store. Two of my sisters accompanied me, and though I was there to promote and sell my book, we each found a book to buy for ourselves because it’s hard to walk out of a bookstore without a new addition to your TBR pile. I bought Helen of Nowhere by Makena Goodman, longlisted for the Booker Prize.

After sunny San Diego, I headed north to the still sunny but cooler Bay Area for book events (at two of the best named bookstores) as well as my grandson’s seventh-birthday party.

Medicina Para Pesadillas (Medicine for Nightmares) in San Francisco was my first stop. Located in the Mission District, this captivating place offers atmosphere, an attentive bookseller, and a wonderful selection of books for the barrio it serves. I appeared with Marianne Villanueva, a writer of fantasy, sci-fi, and dystopian fiction, a contrast to my more realist fiction. We had a congenial, intimate group, all of us writers sharing in the conversation, including Elaine Elinson whose novel Radiant as the Stars was published a few months ago.

The next night I was at Womb House Books in Oakland in conversation with Margaret Lee. I met Margaret when she was vacationing in Spain with her family. We were introduced over email by mutual friend Tessa Hulls. Margaret’s book Starry Field was released on the same 2024 date as Tessa’s Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel Feeding Ghosts. It was Margaret who helped set up the event at Womb House, a small, feminist bookstore run by “a team of one human being.” A dynamic, sparkling human being, I would add.

And then there was a birthday party!

Next stop was Seattle. The evening before my first event, I went with my friend and host Debra to the opening of Seattle/Oaxaca artist Fulgencio Lazo’s new show Iluminando Caminos. Accompanying him was 91-year-old Shinzaburo Takeda, one of Oaxaca’s most important artists. Originally from Japan and a Mexican resident for over fifty years, he has trained many Mexican artists, including Fulgencio whose work is known internationally. It was an impressive display of work and a festive and appreciative atmosphere. Bonus: I got to practice my Spanish with some of the guests. Related memory: In 2019 when I was in Oaxaca for a couple of weeks, Fulgencio invited me for Sunday breakfast where his mother and his sisters prepared a most delicious feast.

Capping off the month was my event at the iconic Elliott Bay Book Company. For many years when it was located in Pioneer Square, I would stroll over from my nearby office to browse and buy. In the 90’s, it hosted the Dia de los Muertos readings organized and performed by Los Norteños, the Latino writers group I belonged to. I continued to make it my destination bookstore after it moved to Capitol Hill. I’ve attended many readings there and I launched my first two books there. The third one came out during the pandemic and EBB hosted a Zoom event. I feel great affection for this store and its employees. Rick Simonson has been especially kind and supportive, and I value his friendship and his extensive knowledge about books, writers, and the local, national, and international literary scene. He’s a treasure, widely known and appreciated.

Writer and long-time friend Kathleen Alcalá, whose most recent book is Why Stars Burn, was my conversation partner. I was elated to see old friends, people who had inspired, supported, and comforted me during my years living in Seattle. Their faces, their hugs, the familiar goodwill I will hold forever.

And yet, I wanted more of that, so after the event I walked with Debra, Rick, and dear friend Catalina Cantú over to nearby Hugo House where a Dia de los Muertos reading was ending to spirit away its curator Claudia Castro Luna whose memoir The Flowers Along the Way came out last month. But first, I took a photo with people dear to me and to the literary community.

We went for late-night Mexican food and were allowed to linger at the table in conversation long after the restaurant closed. After we said our farewells to the others, Debra and I were heading back to her apartment when we saw a store sign all bright and inviting that read “Insomnia Cookies.” We’d never heard of it and wondered, could it be a cure for insomnia? We went to check it out. We waited until the young man behind the counter finished serving a richly decadent serving of ice cream on a giant chocolate cookie in a to-go box for a customer. Seemingly not a cure for insomnia, but still I asked, are your cookies meant to be a remedy for sleeplessness? He shook his head, smiling. So, your cookies do not have a secret, calming ingredient that induces sleep? Sorry, he said with a not-sorry look. The two other customers in the store giggled. But really, was it that outlandish? I mean the name of the store. On gritty edgy Capitol Hill. But no. So, we left without buying a single cookie.

That’s it for October. I have a few more book events in November and then I head back to Málaga.

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If you missed my essay about plot in Writers Digest, you can find it here.

If you missed my essay about the inspiration behind Ofelia and Norma in Necessary Fiction, you can find it here.

If you missed the interview in Coachella Review, you can find it here.

If you missed the review in The Madrid Review, you can find it here.