CATCHING UP WITH YOU: Updates on My Writing, and Some Fun Info About the "Holiday Blog Tour"

This year has flown, and I'm noticing how long I've been away from this blog now. For those of you who've stopped by and didn't see anything new, my apologies. I hope you won't give up on me, and please drop by again. For new readers of this blog, thanks for dropping by. I hope to keep you engaged and up-to-date. Let me update you first on what I've been doing since my last posting here a year ago.

• Three of my short stories have been published in books or literary journals: Pha'titude Literary Magazine; PALABRA Literary Magazine; and the new anthology just issued, Soul Vomit.
• About 7 new poems have been published in the San Gabriel Valley Poets Quarterly, and the Poetry and Cookies Annual Anthology.
• I expanded and revised my new book of short stories (as yet unpublished) by adding new stories. The book is tentatively titled Liar, Liar & Other Stories and includes 15 works, which is longer than my first award-winning short story collection, The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories (2009).
• I've launched a new series of book reviews for the awesome website, www.Latinopia.com , hosted by talented author and filmmaker, Jesus Trevino. The series focuses on iconic Hispanic-American women authors who made history with their award-winning books in the 20th century, from 1972-1996. So far, 7 books have been reviewed, with 5 remaining (about one per month).
• I've written essays for www.PowerfulLatinas.com (hosted by Aurelia Flores) and some of these have been cross-posted in the award-winning blog, www.LaBloga.blogspot.com (hosted by vaunted authors Daniel Olivas, Michael Sedano, et al.).
• I am preparing my new poetry chapbook, Hearts in Common--which was deemed a semi-finalist in a national poetry chapbook competition, and which will be published by Kentucky's Finishing Line Press in June 2013--to go to press.
• I've completed a new nonfiction book that I plan to publish in early 2013. The book is a compilation of excerpts from my writings over the years, commentary and mini-essays on vital issues we all care about and that came to the fore particularly strongly in our presidential campaign season and during the elections in November, and which are still issues challenging us as we speak: education, women's rights, family, equality for all, politics and power...and the things we most care about on individual levels: parenting, love, friendship, death of loved ones, appreciating our world, nature, and beauty. The book is tentatively titled Life & Other Important Things and is illustrated throughout with about 25 full-color oil paintings by California artist and author, Victor Cass.

Whew! I feel less guilty now for having been very remiss in keeping up this blog. I'll keep you updated on all the above, but you can also visit my:

• Facebook page, Author Thelma Reyna's Fan Club, for the most current information about my writing and publishing.
• My other blog, www.Latinowriterstoday.blogspot.com 
• The other blogs noted above,  for which I am a guest blogger (Powerful Latinas and Latinopia) or an occasional guest blogger (La Bloga).

Thanks for your supportiveness of us authors. Now, speaking of other authors...here's the best part of today's posting: LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE "HOLIDAY BLOG TOUR" THAT ELEVEN OF MY COLLEAGUES ARE DOING ESPECIALLY FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

The 2012 Holiday Blog Tour...Creativity Galore!

Beginning on December 7, a group of dynamic women authors have been writing special poems, memoirs, stories, or essays about the spirit of Christmas: what it means to them, memorable ones they've had, what they hope for us, etc. These commemorative writings have been posted day by day on each author's own website. The "tour" is thus our daily visiting of each website in turn, until the 2012 tour ends on Christmas Eve.

So far, 12 authors have posted their holiday blogs. These are still up, so stop by their sites to enjoy them:

DEC. 7--Jasmine Clemente, www.jasmineclementetheartist.blogspot.com

DEC. 8--Gwendolyn Jerris, www.silenceandhoneysuckle.wordpress.com

DEC. 9--Natasha Oliver, www.natashaoliver.com

DEC. 10--Regina Tingle, www.unsolicitedcertainties.wordpress.com

DEC. 11--Caridad Pineiro, www.caridad.com/blog

DEC. 12--Teresa Carbajal Ravet, www.SententiaVera.com

DEC. 13--Natasha Alvarez, www.audaciouslady.com

DEC. 14--Stephanie Dorman, www.howmanyfrogs.com

DEC. 15--Karen La Beau, www.klabeau.blogspot.com

DEC. 16--Annette Santos, www.themongaconfesses.blogspot.com

DEC. 17--Zoraida Cordova, www.zoraidawrites.com

DEC. 18--Kristy Harding, www.kristyharding.com

The rest of the lineup is as follows. Please join me in keeping up with these very talented, insightful authors!

DEC. 19--Nikki Kallio, www.morepurplehouses.blogspot.com

DEC. 20--Sujeiry Gonzalez, www.lovesujeiry.com

DEC. 21--Samantha Kolber, www.sam-poet.blogspot.com

DEC. 22--Me, Thelma, right here...www.TheLiterarySelf.blogspot.com

DEC. 23--Julia Amante, www.juliaamante.blogspot.com

DEC. 24--Icess Fernandez Rojas (the creator of Holiday Blog Tour), www.writingtoinsanity.com

Looking Forward to 2013...

As we prepare for the new year, let us continue to support one another. Being an author is very hard work done in solitary fashion. For most of us, the monetary rewards are slight or nonexistent. Most of us do not support our families on our earnings from writing. We engage in it because each of our "literary selves" tugs at our hearts and compels us to write. We write because it is as natural an occurrence to us as breathing, eating, or brushing our teeth. It's a daily event, whether we pen emails to friends, or post opinions on online newspapers like the Huffington Post and New York Times, or whether we compose a poem, or write a story, or create a new chapter for our novel-in-progress--or (heavens!) any combination of these. Shakespeare said, "The play's the thing." For the rest of us authors working in obscurity, "Writing's the thing"...the point, the act which is its own reward for being. In short, we write because...we are.

Thanks for dropping by, and please keep coming back. Happy holidays to each of you, and a prosperous, peaceful, healthy New Year.

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A Christmas Essay on the Power of Many

  Join Me in the 2011

                          

Holiday Blog Tour

An outstanding group of authors from all over America joined creative forces this month to go on a Holiday Blog Tour. Starting on December 2, with Julia Amante, and ending on December 24 with Icess Fernandez, 23 authors representing diverse genres and publication experience wrote, or will write,  a special Christmas piece on their individual blogs. It can be a poem, story, essay, memoir, or any genre each author selects for himself  or herself. We each read one another's blogs and spread the word to all we know, to keep the traffic flowing from one creative experience to another. This tour has been a wonderful exercise in nurturing a community of authors who inspire and support one another. Clicking on the golden tree ornament photo above will show you a full listing of authors on this blog tour and their dates of posting.

As we head into one of the most beloved holidays in the world, I look forward to the opportunities for reflection that this special time of year affords us. These are extremely hard times for millions of our fellow human beings, but if we still have family who love us, and friends who are there for us, we have much to appreciate: these are among the greatest gifts we can ask for.

My selected piece for this holiday blog tour takes me back many years, to one of the most memorable Christmas seasons I've experienced. I was an English teacher at Pasadena High School (Pasadena, CA); and on this particular occasion, my students taught me the beauty and power of people united in a good deed. Writing this piece enabled me to step back for a moment and reflect on those students and on their collective human strength. Enjoy, and please feel free to leave a comment.

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One=Many

Sometimes a simple idea catches fire. Sometimes, in our desperation and frustration that we individually can’t do more, we reach out with a simple idea, ... and it catches fire.

The power of one can be the power of one hundred when a spark is lit, if the spark is for the good of others. We know this to be true in recent revolutions: the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street protests, and its cousins across our nation. But the power of many is sometimes not a torrent, just a clear, burbling stream unchecked by boulders in its midst, just a timid, stolid movement forward. Often, in our individual spheres, in our little private corners of the world, this is how the power of many looks: small but stalwart.

One Christmas season long ago, as a young high school teacher, I wanted to light a little spark in my students regarding a family none of us knew. We had been reading and writing about classic themes of the season: charity, generosity, poverty, unity. Having two small children at home, I knew how much Christmas means to children; and my students knew well the sting of poverty in various neighborhoods of our community, including their own. Could we unite behind one family, a struggling family poorer than all the rest of us, and try to make a difference in their lives, even if just for one day, one Christmas?

My students were from all over the city, some of them having to ride buses for half an hour to attend school across town. They were a mix of kids: privileged, middle-class, blue-collar, immigrant. I told them one day, class by class, about a family I’d heard about in my church parish: a family of five, with three children and unemployed parents. I didn’t know their names, and I had never met them, but I had heard about the bleakness of their holidays.

I brought a large, empty cardboard box to my classroom and set it in a corner. It only took a few minutes to describe this unknown family to the students: the eldest girl, age 13; the middle son, age 11; the youngest child, a boy age 8. This I had learned from our priest. The class was quiet at first. Many of my students were not strangers to hardship. Then someone mentioned ideas for gifts for the girl. Someone else thought of things the youngest child might like. The conversation wasn’t really a conversation: just some musings aloud, half-muttered, some inklings of ideas being stirred. A few hands went up: Yes, they’d like to bring in a little gift some day this week. Could they wrap it up first? Yes. Should every gift be new? Yes. The yesses were coming from the students themselves, as they nodded quietly at one another. OK. We had some understandings, so we moved on to the classwork scheduled for that day.

It was not a torrent. It was a small stream that swelled a bit each day, that rolled a little faster at times. But each day, throughout the day, for the entire week, students paused by the large box in the corner of our room. Some placed a small package, light and thin, gingerly in the box. Others carefully placed one, two, three gifts, a tower carefully balanced, in the box. Some students peeked in, hands empty, hands stuffed into jeans pockets, but eyes curious. Some brought in a gift as if carried on a silver platter, face proud, smile wide. Some students dropped an unwrapped toy, or bottle of shaving lotion, or some such toiletry for the parents, into our collection. Some students shyly stuffed their gift under their desks as they did their schoolwork for the day, and only at the end of class, on their way out, unnoticed by most, did they modestly place their offering into the box.

And so the stream flowed. On the last day of the week, some of my girls brought in wrapping paper from their homes. I brought forth scissors and tape. Sipping punch, munching on cookies, students took time to wrap last-minute gifts as they chatted about this “project,” this first-time group charity endeavor for many of them. They looked proudly at their achievement:

Four large cardboard boxes filled to the brim with my students’ generosity, their charity, their kindness toward strangers. Their unity. The power of many in making a difference in the lives of others.

Some students wept quietly. Others beamed. We hugged.

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Featured blogger on December 15:  Sylvia Mendoza. Visit 
http://blog.sylvia-mendoza.com/ and go to her Author Page for further information.