La Vista - Luis Alberto Urrea

Tick Tock

2011-05-27T13:36:00.002-05:00

Hello, Amigos. I have been busy with Facebook and twitter lately, waiting for the code-writer genius cadre to tighten all the bolts on the new website. Man, it's pretty! I have been promising this for a while, but we're days away. All new, all colorful, all kinds of neat things to look at. And, after a while, we'll be adding the Teresita/Saint of Cabora page with photos and songs and archival stuff like death certificates and citizenship papers and the bibliography. Scholars and term paper writers can have a field day. I'm so happy--we have downloaded reams of my drawings, cartoons, illustrations and even some paintings. I will be doing "Sketchbook Satuirday"--new art every week in the blog section. Yes! Will bring back the old "Writing Church" sessions on Sundays--where I'll answer any writing questions you have. That's usually a lively convo.

I just returned from the BEA in NYC. (Book Expo America.) It was, as ever, a mad crush of a million book buyers, sellers, collectors, librarians, publishers, editors, publicists, costume-wearing characters, promoters, Twitterers, book-bloggers, reviewers, agents, freebie-hunters...oh, and writers. We were there, too. Lots and lots of writers. There was the occasional whiff of desperation, like a cheap cologne, in the air. You know: Amazon Publishing loomed in the corner like Darth Vader's Death Star! News of favorite bookstores dying seeped across the floor--our beloved Bookworks in Del Mar, for example. One dude told me my "legacy" publisher would be dead and gone in five years, and I'd better get to Kindling. Huh. Little, Brown? Gone? Ask Louisa May Alcott. They will prevail.

I was thrilled, and worn out, by the event. As usual. Big doses of coffee helped. I wa slucky enough to be around when L,B unleashed the ARCs (gorgeous) of QUEEN OF AMERICA. I stood with my editor, Geoff Shandler. He smiled and said, "Now you'll see what it's like to man a booth at BEA!" Well, it's interesting. Lots of people at first picked it up, looked at it, and dropped it. But then, suddenly, the lines formed and we burned through every single copy! Hundreds gone! I sweated through my jacket. Yes! My kind of work!

You can never tell if your book will do well or not. Many times, people asked me, "Does it stand alone, or do you have to read Hummingbird first?" So I can see that bit of info will be a big part of my task between now and December. Just to make sure people know it stands alone. HEY, PASS IT ON.

Happy to be home, and happy we went. Super excited that we discovered the best first book, ever: Eowyn Ivey's THE SNOW CHILD. Just wait. Seriously, just wait till you read this one. Neil Gaiman fans? You're going to be hooked. And she's the nicest person out there. Psst--don't tell Eowyn, but I'm grabbing an Alaska cruise so I can hang out some more!

OK. Watch this space. I'll let you know via FB and Twitter when this thang pops. Hope it knocks you out.

Love, L

How Bad Is It?

2011-04-17T14:15:00.002-05:00

Palm Sunday, 2011 -- Although the website is not done reconstructing yet--expect it before May--I had to post a commentary today. To all the Into the Beautiful North readers, especially. Do you recall the beach in the novel where Nayeli and Aunt Irma take everybody crab fishing? This is a real Sinaloa beach in a real Sinaloa community where we used to go back in the 70s and 80s. The beach community thereabouts is called Caimanero. Basically, "The Alligator Area." Makes a real impression on a teenaged boy. Last night, there was a quinceanera at Caimanero. You know, the fancy dress-up party/dance that celebrates a girl's fifteenth birthday. The kind of celebration Nayeli would have loved. Except, after midnight, the narcos showed up. Armed. And they opened fire. The massacred six teens at least and left them scattered in the sand. All along the route in Mexico where my novel takes place, there have been massacres, dismemberments, beheadings and kidnappings that lead to torture and often death. I have tried to sketch out a new horror novel based on the narco world, but guess what. They outstrip my worst imaginings every week. If you are interested and have a strong stomach, I recommend the heroic--and appalling--Mexican website blogdelnarco.com. I warn you: there is snuff fottage on display. But if you care to know how deadly the drug war is, right now, take a look. Say a prayer for the children.

New short story in Tin House

2011-03-02T10:23:00.004-06:00

Tin House is one of the best literary magazines out there and if you're not a subscriber, you should be! The latest issue, just out this week, features my strange, mysterious short story called Chametla. You can read it on-line by clicking here: Click fiction, then my name. Enjoy!

New Nuevo Nouveau

2011-03-01T12:36:00.001-06:00

Thanks for your patience. The electro-gnomes are hammering and sanding madly: new website will be up before May. While you wait, won't you join us on Twitter? Twitter.com/Urrealism.

The Queen of America

2011-02-12T10:29:00.002-06:00

Wanted you all to see the new cover of my sequel to The Hummingbird's Daughter. Titled The Queen of America, she's scheduled for Dec. 2011. I LOVE this cover! What do you think?

COMING SOON

2011-01-28T13:50:00.001-06:00

We are currently rebuilding luisurrea.com with an all-new design team. Thanks for your patience. We'll be back with fresh new features very soon.

1-1-11

2011-01-01T14:59:00.002-06:00

And so a new year begins. It was a big 2010 for us at Urrea World Headquarters. I can't even remember what all happened--did I really win an Edgar Award? Did I really get the National Hispanic Cultural Center Award? I know I finished Hummingbird's Daughter II (Queen of America), and we are in the editing process now. I know my graphic novel with Christopher CVardinale came out (MR. MENDOZA'S PAINTBRUSH). Cinderella and I went on book tour. We took the kids to Quintana Roo, Belize, Guatemala and Cozumel. Had soldiers point machine guns at us on a jungle road. Megan graduated high school and we lived in London for a month and scurried over to Paris 'cause ya gotta. And I toured and I toured and I toured.

So. Now. Change.

We have hired a pro web design artist to re-engineer this website. Our dear friend who has handled this for us can't do it right now. So there's a whole tech re-think and redesign. Hope you like it.

Fewer peeps come here since the advent of Facebook and Twitter; we will be adding FB and Tweet feeds to the front page. The blog will still be here, and the archives will remain in place since I seem to have written you a couple of books' worth over the years. I have long promised a Teresita section--photos, documents, etc. Expect that, too.

All kinds of whiz-bang gewgaws.

Thank you for sticking with me all this time. I am starting my new book projects, adding poetry to the work list, writing many notebooks, thinking about Kindle books of cheap-o esoterica you fans might eb interested in. The first effort of 2011 is my story, "The Soutshide Raza Image Federation Corps of Discovery" in this month's ORION magazine. Or you can listen to me read it at orionmagazine.org. Or, if you're feeling iPoddy, you can pick it up on iTunes. I was lying abed when I recorded it. How louche. I tell my FB pals to imagine we're in the ol' sach and I'm reading you a naughty bedtime story. The second effort will be U of AZ's re-reissue of my beloved first novel, IN SEARCH OF SNOW. Between the old hardcover, the trade paperback, and AZ, there have now been four editions of this book. Unbelievable. I am CERTAIN, that since it appeared in 1994, it has racked up an astounding 103 readers! Yes!!! After that, a story in TIN HOUSE, and a story in SAN DIEGO NOIR. Keeping busy, y'all.

I wish you a magical, powerful, unasailable, unflagging, clear-heart, healthy, well-fed, safe, yet daring, productive, poetic, romantic, sexual, spiritual, active, successful, stressless, astonishing year.

MAKE 2011 JUST LIKE HEAVEN.

XXX, L

Need a Christmas gift?

2010-12-17T10:32:00.003-06:00

This afternoon, as part of its 2nd Annual Books are Great Gifts campaign, the Twitter literary community LitChat is sponsoring a charitable book auction featuring signed books from some of your favorite authors. Some you will know, others you SHOULD know. One you do know is me. I will send the winning bidder signed copies of The Hummingbird's Daughter, Into the Beautiful North and Mr.Mendoza's Paintbrush -- plus some cool swag from my treasure box. Sign in this afternoon and bid big!

Thanks!

http://litchat.net/2nd-annual-books-are-great-gifts-campaign/2010bagg-book-auction/

Lennon

2010-12-08T14:28:00.002-06:00

I've been reading so many thoughts about John Lennon and his art and life and death today. Seems that everyone recalls that bad day--like the day JFK was slaughtered. Where were you?

I was in Tijuana. I was in a place called The Barrio of Shallow Graves. Great name for a neighborhood. Bad place to live.

It was night. I have written about this before. There was a young girl whose face was covered with impetigo sores. She lived in a dirt canyon with no electricity or running water. There was a broken refrigerator at the top of the slope with a pile of human excrement inside, sitting on the shelf like some hideous dessert. Gang-bangers filled the dark alleys around the girl's house, and they had tried to explode our vehicle by putting a lit cherry bomb in the gas tank.

I was working for Pastor Von in those days. Translator. Bringing words to the teeming, silenced peopel of the canyon. And medicine. It was pretty direct--the girl's scabs had to be broken through so the medicine could get into the face-mange that was disfiguring her. I held her as the missionaries scrubbed that bloddy patch on her face and broke her heart. It was torture, let's face it. She writhed and cried and begged me to stop them, but I held her against my chest and promised her it would be all right.

Sure, we healed her. But was it all right? Did her world improve? Did her face? Maybe for a while. You do your best, and you hope. Right? Heal the sick, isn't that what the work is supposed to be? Feed the hungry? Clothe the naked? Comfort the widow? We were solid on every level, and her mother was a widow to boot. Covered on all the God-chores. My little task was also this: give voice to the voiceless.

Got home stinking of poverty. I had that orphanage stink on me too--pee and dogs and spoiled food and hair oil. Baby shit. I'd be checking myself for lice later. But I walked in my door at midnight and a voice in the dark called out: "Did you hear about John Lennon?"

That's where I was and what I was doing when I heard. The world did not get better. And later, when I went to see family in Sinaloa, I saw this painted on a wall: LENNON DON'T LET ME DOWN. It wasn't Lennon who failed.

That Was the Year That Was

2010-12-01T15:43:00.002-06:00

I'm leaving for Santa Fe soon. I know, I know--I said I was through for the year. But one more human rights event. Then I'll be done for 2010. What a year! Wow. How do you figure out a year where you started on Mayan pyramids and in Guatemalan caves with manatee skeletons stuck in the walls above your head, and book tours, and finishing Hummingbird II, and winning an Edgar Award and being named Distinguished Professor at your day job? Crazy, man. As my surfer buds used to say in San Diego: a for sure blow-mind.

It is becoming a habit to make lists at the end of the year. A habit for me, at least. I usually post all my travel dates. Fans seem to like to see what I'm listening to on ye olde iPod. Some fans like to know what poetry I'm reading. I can't even begin to remember the books I read this year.

So as a wrap-up of this year, and a start to the Urrealist list-making season, I offer you the itinerary for 2010. I don't know what 2011 will hold. But I know it'll end with the book tour for Hummingbird II. (Title forthcoming soon.)

January:

New Orleans, Quintana Roo, Guatemala, Belize, Cozumel.
Chicago Book Group
Joliet Public Library, IL
Kennedy Jr High Faculty Reading Group, IL
Joliet Book Event, IL
Phoenix, AZ
Illinois Bilingual Ed Convention, Naperville

February

DePaul LAS Event, IL
Tucson Festival of the Book, AZ
UTexas PA
Fairfield CT One City One Book Events
Portland OR

March

Closing Event, Plainfield IL
Virginia
Yakima, WA

May

Event w Dave Eggers for Ragdale, IL
Glen Ellyn Book Event, IL
Albuquerque, NM

June

BOOK TOUR/B North Paperback:
June 15, Rockport, MA; June 16, So. Hadley, MA; June 17, Portsmouth, NH;
June 19th, Northshire Books, VT; June 21, Cambridge, MA; June 22, Dallas, then Houston,
TX; June 23, Austin, TX; June 24, San Antonio, TX; June 25, Marfa then Alpine, TX;
June 27, Santa Fe, NM; June 28, Albuquerque, NM; June 29, Denver, CO; July 1, Washington DC.

July

London
Reading, Mr. B's Emporium, Bath
France
Squaw Valley, CA

August

Squaw Valley, cont.

September

Brooklyn Book Festival
Laredo, TX, One Book One City events

October

North Carolina
Sacramento State, CA
Jeff Bezos Campfire Event, Santa Fe, NM

November

Northern Trust West Coast Lecture Tour:
La Jolla, Rancho Santa Fe, Palm Springs, Newport Beach, Las Vegas,
Santa barbara, Beverly Hills
David Taylor Book launch, Chicago

December

Santa Fe

Keepin' busy.

It Is Finished

2010-11-21T15:25:00.003-06:00

I never thought I'd get here. The road was long and twisty, full of danger and heart-break. It hjas been 26 years--I have had an entire writing career while on this journey. Got a wife, divorced that wife, met my beloved, married again, got a family, moved all around the country. Yes, Hummingbird's Daughter II, the sequel, is done. the teresita Saga--my version of it--is finished.

Others want to tell it; bless them. Some folks "channel" Teresita; go, baby. I have met several people who "are" Teresita; reincarnation apparently has gone condo--you can subdivide into many new age people; does it come with cable? Curanderas and medicine people often work with Teresita in their healings; I do not doubt them.

Sandra Cisneros has been saying for years that she was going to write a Teresita book of her own. A helpful amazon.com reviewer says that Teresita was proven by the historical record to be a charlatan and a crook. I have the longest bibliography, I believe, ever accumulated about her and her times. I don't know what historical record the chappie is referring to. But it is no longer my worry.

When I finished the book three days ago, I was simply...stunned. I sat there staring out the window. Not much time to bask (or fester)--I have too many projects left to finish before Christmas. And there are those poems. And those two new novels to write.

But for now, it is finished. I am happy. Hope you will be, too. It'll be available in Fall 2011.

Finally, I did a fun interview this weekend with a sublime little online lit journal. I hope you'll go over there and take a look if you like my stuff.

usedfurniturereview.com.

The End of '10

2010-10-29T13:22:00.002-05:00

"You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck." -- Rumi

The year is ending, and I am finishing the sequel to Hummingbird's Daughter. Yes! Done! And I am about to wander from a few more rooms to a few other rooms. Leaving for the last tour events for 2010. Good God, Y'all! As James Brown was heard to say.

What a year. Anyway, will be sneaking around the west coast doing luncheonas and fab dinners. Sorry, but there are no big public events. Though maybe I'll see you in a hotel lobby or a beanery. I'll be in San Diego, Palm Springs, Newport Beach, Las Vegas, Santa Barbara and Beverly Hills. While out there, will have a fun time at CBS studios talking to some buds about TV ideas. Why not. Hollywood meetings are a way to waste time and have some laughs.

Back in time to teach class and stagger into Thanksgiving. After that, sleep till Christmas.

See you at Barney's Beanery--I'll be close to the window, eating an omelette.

Archive 3: Bath to Stonehenge

2010-10-10T15:43:00.002-05:00

In Bath Abbey, watching them tune
the grand piano for Rick Wakeman's concert.
Arches and buttresses pulling you up
almost against your will
toward heaven.

Having spent yesterday underground in the old Roman baths,
it's particularly dense today to know this site was a pagan
place of worship and prayer before them, and now
it's a Christian church: this same prayer circle in this same marsh
generating steam and generating prayers since the dawn
of human time.
All that soul going out like a laser
forever.

On a small patch of dry lawn, eating a Cornish pasty
with the pigeons. Laundry soap
in the city fountain. Jane Austin's house
down the road; though she hated Bath, the love her.

On the road. A sign:
FRESH
PET MEAT
DAILY.

Heading across the mystical countryside, we see Peter Gabriel's house.
And there's Solsbury Hill, where he climbed and decided to quit Genesis.
Thus, "I walked right out of the machinery." It's tall--no wonder
his heart was going BOOM BOOM BOOM.

We stop and walk through Lacock. Step back 700 years
in the town barn. See the house somebody in Harry Potter movies lives in.
The kids react; I don't know what they're talking about.

St. Cyriac's church. A lovely old flower lady is arranging flowers. She tells us
tales of royal weddings. Prince Charles sat right there! No, there!
The greatest redunadant sign is on the wall:
PLEASE PUT MONEY
FOR FLOWERS IN THE CHURCH
IN THE CHURCH.
The flower lady tells us that anti-terorr sniffer dogs following Charles around
peed on the carpets.

Sword marks from when Henry VIII
had religious symbols
cut down from the church
are still visible in the walls.
Chayo goes into the cemetery and picks and apple off a tree.

Sheep!

Thatched roofs!

In the fields, a great white chalk horse
carved in the sod!

And real white horses that look like
they're carved out of chalk!

House sign:
SOD THE DOG
BEWARE
OF THE KIDS.

Madonna's house is next door to Sting's house.
In golden fields of barley.
Chayo has never heard of Sting.
Tempus fugit.

Cheddar cheese, my kids are delighted to learn,
comes from Cheddar.

You're driving down the road, and suddenly it appears.
An apparition.

Loving Stonehenge. Blind to tourists. Deaf to traffic.
Bitter wind.
Moody low clouds.
Crows circling the monoliths.
The mad endless loops of
squabbling Pink Floyd meadowlarks.

Heinous gift store crowds--rubber Stonehenges.

6,000 years of howling in the wind.

Squadrons of crazy little brown mottled birds fuss in the clover
while I write at this forgotten bench.

Everything around me has fallen
into an eerie time loop, and it keeps repeating:
this wind gust,
the small black cloud speeding by,
the ravens bowing to the stones,
the call of the lark repeating and repeating
exactly the same over and over and over....

Archive 2: Bath, UK

2010-09-25T11:37:00.002-05:00

London. Up at 6:00.
Daughters acting like they're
being martyred on Tower Hill.
More rain. Why do I love London rain?
Because it's so cool to say "London rain," no doubt.
One of those Donovan songs I'd listen to
in San Diego, where I'd never see London, where
I'd seldom see rain.

Paddington Station.
Bought Chayo a Paddington Bear
at the last outlet in London registered directly
to the author. Paddington with his little hat.
The salesman said: "The author's a lovely man.
Eighty-some. But just like you--no lines
on his face. Me? I've got all the lines.
You and he--no lines!"

Pigeons in the roof of the station
open their wings and drop like hang gliders
out of the light.
I share my Starbuck's skinny muffin
with a strutting reunion of rock doves.
Chayo says, "That pigeon's just chillin'."
For the rest of the trip, the big kids
will mock her relentlessly. "That train?
Just chillin'."

Cinderella calls me "The pigeon lady."
Like one of those park bench pigeon feeders,
my molar suddenly falls out! Cursed crown!

Herding five family members to the train car
is crazy stressful. And expensive. I'VE GOT
A GREAT BIG HOLE IN ME JAW!

Screaming down the rails. All near the tracks is a mad blur.
You have to focus on the middle distance to see anything.
We blast into the country, startle suburbs, and back to the fields.
Great yellow meadows under heavy skies.
Scenic half-timbered houses on small rivers.
20 swans in a perfect triangle on black water.
Oil tanks behind ancient
arched stone bridges.

Newspaper headline:
"England Is The Sickie Man of Europe."

Rusting factories, graffiti mad walls
and then, horses.

Every country house
in this rainlight
looks like a watercolor.

Farmer and dog.

Fields, wildflowers, smears of orange.

Behind me, the businessman with the nasal voice
chats up the businesswoman with the strong perfume:

"That's why," he says,
"I wouldn't want my nurse to be Sarah!
She's so bloody...she's
so in her head!
She'd do her job better
if she got a boyfriend.
She's lost weight, though.
Stopped drinking.
Riding her bike."
I'm thinking, GO SARAH.

Foreground fields: dark.
Background fields: bright
as electric lights.

"Molly's ex is posting Facebook messages about cricket.
Clearly, veiled threats to her."

Our kids sleep or play video games. Nobody
looks out the window. Nobody's practicing mindfulness.
Nobody's listening. When you're a kid, you think
you already know. You think you'll be back
1,000,000 times. Why look?

Good luck
with that.

Conductor:
"We're pulling into Swindon five minutes early.
I reckon the train's running on Red Bull this morning."

Businessman, earnestly:
"People
know me
and they like me."

Far mauve hills.

Sheep!
Little white
exclamation points.

All these fields, and no Mexicanos
bent over with short hoes.

Chippenham.

"I went to her brother's stag party.
And I met some really fun guys there!"

Lovely, lovely Bath.
Entering a stone and green-hill dream.

[Summer 2010.]

Archive: 1. Cussin'

2010-09-18T13:02:00.002-05:00

I fell in with Oglala Lakota brothers at Pine Ridge Reservation. This helped me through some of the most harrowing terrors of writing The Hummingbird's Daughter, and gave me a couple of my favorite short stories--not least of which is the NPR "Selected Shorts" perennial, "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses."

Better than all this, of course, if friendship. And of my friends, DuaneBrewer is the best cusser. Cussing is a fine art, and I enjoy it. I was told by an angry book club maven in Pasadena, "If you had used language in my house like you use in Hummingbird, you would have been punched in the mouth." My first thought was: wow, what a spiritual place your house was! All I could think to say to her was, "It isn't about your house, it's about somebody else's house."

In 1991, Duane unleashed my all-time favorite curse. A curse thunderous in its outrage, mad in its locution, hilarious in its funk. Damn! He was rockin'! I hope to quote it on my death-bed. It is a great American poem. He said:

That guy
is a low-life
shit-lipped
mother-effin'
et up
dried out
box of Kentucky
Fried Chicken.

Brooklyn

2010-09-07T07:10:00.000-05:00

After an epic summer of Book Tour USA, Family extended adventures in England and France, and the Squaw Valley writers' workshops, I am coming out of my summer hibernation. Man, I got home in time to see Megan off to college, to suffer through another birthday, and to start teaching again. Other than that--nothing. No workouts, not gardening, just a month of stunned vegetating. Oh, yeah--there was that one small thing of writing more of the Hummingbird's Daughter sequel.

This coming weekend, I'll be in Brooklyn, at the Brooklyn book festival. I'll be doing two panels, though both are slated against various super-duper-stars. I won't be mad at ya if I don't see ya!

After that, I'ma head on down to Laredo, and to a local gig, and out to a mysterious event in Santa Fe that I can tell you about after it's over (not open to the public--sorry), and to a week in California in November. That'll be just about the right time to leave Chi for CA, by the way. Stuff like that.

I'll keep you posted.

See you in New York and, oh Lord, don't let the bedbugs bite.

Teresita Psalms: Saint of Cabora Texts

2010-08-25T12:43:00.002-05:00

Lots of readers/fans and a few scholars have written to me over the past year asking for some insight into thde background of my novel, THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER. (And, I suppose, its sequel, coming next year from Little, Brown.) Although I do have piles and stacks and shelves full of rsearch, and I suspect the longest Teresita Urrea bibliography ever compiled, I don't think that's what people are after. People want stories. Some want revelations of spiritual secrets, some want adventure, some want writing tips and some just want to hear juicy yarns. And lots of you want to hear my ghost stories! I'm that way, too. Gimme a story, man.

I have suggested you check out the second volume of THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW (on stands and on the internet). It's a fine new lit journal. It has a long essay about all that stuff; I wrote it for a chapbook a few years ago. It's called "Haunted Arizona." You might like it.

Here's somethimng dear to my heart for ya. Cinderella can tell you that, in the deepest darkest era of working on that book, in the Arizona heat in my sad little adobe after ghosts and boogies had chased me out of my original old barrio digs, my mind was so fried that I couldn't even read. Enter haiku. I could read haiku.

So in honor of that salvation, I wrote a record of writing HUMMINGBIRD in haiku form. (OK--some of them were senryu...but why niggle?) It came out in the SONORA REVIEW, Vol. 56. For those of you who missed it, here it is.

#

SONORAN DESERT SUTRAS:
Notes on Writing The Hummingbird's Daughter in Tucson

Despairing of God
I went to the desert
to seek my own saint.
#
Haunted adobe--
candelabra's melting stubs
wax that fell was black.
#
If I went downstairs,
heard kitchen racket overhead--
nobody else there.
#
Disembodied hand
tarantula-crawled across
white shee to my face.
#
Medicine woman
cooking her green tamales
held me when I wept.
#
My teacher too ke
to ask questions of the plants--
I felt like a child.
#
Halloween midnight
one wrecked car blocking the road--
single human leg.
#
One box Minute Rice--
one old cat, half dead, half blind--
abandoned to trust.
#
Yaqui funeral--
old man in his black coffin
colder than the moon.
#
First monsoon morning--
I finally saw miracles--
frogs leaped from the ground.
#
Female medium
insited spirits told her--
I'd signed questionnaire.
#
Tinajas Altas--
couldn't find any water,
someone left a can.
#
After the car wreck
100 trucks drove over
the children's clothing.
#
At old copper mine
pondering the day's lessons
coyotes stalked me.
#
The angry scholar
called to threaten a lawssuit
if I wrote the book.
#
She said we were twins
sepatared in heaven--
did I want to aprty?
#
The Hotel Congress
was still a holy vortex--
Dillinger slept there.
#
Down in Mexico
the curanderas fed me
bowls of green Jell-O.
#
Teresita's niece
wakes up on certain mornings
floating in the air.
#
Standing in graveyards
in Clifton, Arizona--
thought I might find her.
#
"I'm their worst nightmar!"
he said in his adobe--
"Liberal with guns!"
#
Medicine woman
said she missed grandmother's ghost
since it left with me.
#
The saint's grand-daughter
heals families in Phoenix--
danced for Dean Martin.
#
Holy woman said,
"In heaven you'll have a job!"
Shaking her finger.
#
When down to nothing
the spirits bring miracles--
one dollar Whopper.
#
Hiking Sheep Pen trail
vulture flew up behind me--
my shadow grew wings.
#
Mostly it was work
alone on old computer--
Nine Inch Nails at night.
#
I learned something there
From The Saint of Cabora--
Every day's sacred.

Recent Publications

2010-08-23T13:17:00.002-05:00

ORION

Chip Blake and his staff continue to make brilliant art with their magazine, ORION. I am excited to be in the September/October 2010 issue. be sure to pick it up. Not just for my small contribution.

The cover says "Luis Urrea's Border Patrol." (Warning to my Chi-town homeboy, Carl--there's a shout-out to you in there, brother. Well, to your story.) It's not really MY Border Patrol, it's David Taylor's. His powerfukl book of USBP photos, WORKING THE LINE is coming out now. I wrote the text. Hence, the ORION feature.

I am happy to say that I also give big props to my hero, Sheriff Ogden of Yuma.

Look, that's good stuff, but my other Chi homeboy, mad Jon Lowenstein ahs a kille pohot feature as well, and a long story by TC Boyle. Delights on every page. Get it!

THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW

While I'm at it, I'd like to direct your attention to THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW. A lit journal. Their excellent second issue is on the stands now, or you can look them up on the internet.

HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER fans have asked me many many times, via this blog, Facebook and Twitter, as well as by that endles stream of emails, to tell 'em some scerets about the mystical/ghostly research-and-experience process of writing that book. And its sequel...coming soon...not telling you the title yet! OK. It's in HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW. It's called "Haunted Arizona." It's a start. Check it out.

Book Tour Texas Pt. 2

2010-08-19T12:50:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe I'm doing Italian translation work
on Hummingbird's daughter via iPhone with Rome
from a speeding car in Texas.

Low clouds only 7 stories
above the plain.

90 to Hondo:
There is a novel in every hovel.

Appropriate or what:
ZZ Top in Hondo.
FM!

Pro-Ag warehouse,
roof peeled off & curling
aluminum wave.

Seco Creek, Live Oak Creek, pretty pretty Texas:
every little town graced with gardens
of highway sunflowers. Squirrel Creek.
400 hundred miles of love & freedom.

Corn
blackbirds
East Elm Creek.

#

One corn field
five
Border Patrol trucks.

Sign:
DO THE WEB-WORM WHOMP.

Border patrol check point
surrounded by
white goats.

Weirdness: radio's turned off
yet chattering with electric blips and stutters--
morse code from the UFOs.

Call Art Bell! At 11:11, the radio
sends another CIA message.

Valverde.

I'm worried:
Adult Store porn shop--
the sign is a giant pair
of scissors.

Onto N 277.

#

Del Rio sun-beat & hard:
superbikers
blat.

BORDER PATROL
FIREARMS TRAINING
near
LAKE AMISTAD.
And
DRIVE FRIENDLY.
But
DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS.

Landscape
makes the water
look like acid
baths.

Inspction station catches us.
We are suddenly suspects.
Dogs swarm the car, sniffing.
Cindy all tongue-tied
in the face of interrogation.
USBP guys rising out of the desert scrub
on ATVs, RoboCop helmets on their heads.

The whole time the dog sniffs our trunk,
smilin' Agent Perez
is sniffing our psyches.

We are freed and escape
down Seminole Canyon.

Pecos River gorge.
Giant smear of sun baked blood,
six vultures.
Every few miles, another vulture
just chillin'.

Osman Canyon: USBP everywhere. White trucks
on the hills like tiny glaciers.

"I put Glee on the ipod for Chayo,"
Cindy lies. I click to
The Sex Pistols.
BP agents beside the road,
cutting the drag--those tires
on a dirt road, just like Devil's Highway.
I feel cocky.

Prairie Creek.

Abandoned silver trailer
looking like a sardine cane
packed with ghosts in oil.

Dryden, Texas.
Perfectly named.

#

Vulture party
bowing formally
to a freshly killed deer.

Big Bend ahead--watching for pterodactyls.

We pass a semi & a deer
jackrabbits in front of us both--
followed by a buzzard, clearly calculating
the angles.

Now a bird
dives for the windshield.

Outbreak of Animal Suicides:
Thousands Flee.

OOPS.

Cindy just bew past a Texas State Trooper going
over 80.
And

he pulls a u-turn.

#

Trooper Turman had the scary trooper sunglasses.
The scary trooper campaign hat.
The scary big ol' gun in a squeaky holster.
He walked up to us looking ten feet tall.
I found myself inexplicably schmoozing him: "Sorry, man.
I'm on book tour--trying to get to Marfa for a radio interview!"

BOOK TOUR, he said. WHAT KIND OF BOOK.

"Novel. I write all kinds of books." Cindy's looking at me
like I've taken drugs. I'm leaning over her to talk out the window.
"I wrote a book about the Border Patrol."

Trooper Turman bends at the waist and peers in at me.

WERE YOU EVER A BORDER PATROL AGENT, he asks.

"Ha! No way! I had to train with them, though! Those boys
gave me a hard time!" I'm squealing like a gerbil right now.

HUH.

He takes Cindy's license and walks back to his car.

"You're talking about books with the trooper," she accuses.
I'm all proud of myself. Then I notice
a huge dragonfly hovering outside my window,
watching us. I suddenly know
God is on our side.

I'M GOING TO LET YOU OFF WITH A WARNING
THIS TIME
BUT WATCH IT
Trooper Turman reluctantly announces.
LET ME GO WRITE IT UP.
He gets back in his car.
"He loves us," I say.
I realize I have a copy of Into the Beautiful North
in the trunk and decide we must give it to him.
"Are you bribing him?" my bride wants to know.
"No! He already let us off. I'm thanking him."

Trooper Turman sits in his scary car and watches us
with bemusement on his face as we frantically dig into the trunk
and go through our bags. Is he wondering if we have a shotgun?
I find the book!
Yay!

I march back to his car and tap on the window.
I comes down slowly and he stares up at me.

YES?

"Here's my new book," I say. "I'd like you to have it."
He stares. He almost smiles.
SIR, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THAT.
"You didn't have to be so kind, either," I reply.
I borrow his pen so I can sign it.

He takes it and looks at it.
THANK YOU.
"You're welcome."
He turns it over and looks at my picture.
Then he shouts:

YOU'RE HISPANIC?!?

#

We sped off into the water-puddle mirages
on the two-lane blacktop.

Random Book Tour Dispatch: Texas in June Pt. 1

2010-08-18T15:08:00.003-05:00

"Me and Cinderella, put it all together,
We can drive it home
With one headlight." --The Wallflowers

#

Up at 4:00, leaving Boston before sunrise.

Grind, grind, grind. Get to Dallas, and Ronnie
drives us to Dallas Morning News offices--
reporters watch the World Cup over my shoulder
as I try to answer their questions.

100 people at my luncheon talk.
One old woman had a Mexican-stroke and
raised a shaking finger at me and shouted
MEXI-KANZ! MEEEEXI-KAAAANZ!
Nobody likes immigration, lady, but I smuggle
illegal aliens all day in my luggage!
Nah, I didn't say that.
Limo saved me from the Wrath of the Queen
and rushed us to the airport.
We slept the 45 minutes to Houston--
did not awaken refreshed.

Hertz only had shite cars. I stared at the hot
Camaros in the lot and wept. Only weird
little boxes w/ no GPS. "But," we argued,
"we're driving across Texas and into New Mexico!"
We were already so bedraggled that the awesome goddess,
Miss Loretta,
snuck us into a rockin' fat bidnessman Altima w
GPS and satellite radio.

Straight to Brazos Books. 50 people. Signed many books.
Dragged over to the affable and frou-frou Zaza Hotel.
So arty it could have been made of chocolate and neon.
Too tired to love it.
Claw-foot bed!
Vibrators in the bedroom. Um....vibrators?
Fell 130 miles
into the bed
and slept
with no dreams.

#

Up. Out of bed. Aching.
Old man shower, feeling sorry
for my body.
Must rush to Austin.

Ludacris
in the hotel lobby
laying the smack down on some
poor concert promoter--
his bodyguards
giving us the stink-eye.

Toddle over to Murder By the Book
to sign copies of Phoenix Noir. (I
accidentally won an Edgar for my story,
"Amapola.")
Whole staff was watching
the world cup.

Freeway.
Starbucks.
Freeway.

ROAD PORN: we passed
a car-carrier with a new Camaro
perched nose-to-nose
with a new Challenger.

Katy, Texas: I see
cows.

Vulture circles over the freeway--
must have heard I was coming.

Hawks hunt the fields
along TX 71.

Fireworks stand: BUY 1,
GET 11 FREE!!!

House in the trees was once
a gas station. Empty
pump stands in front yard
full of bushes. People
from my first novel
would definitely be living there.

Rusty hearse in a field.

Odd:
bridge in segments
for sale beside the highway.

Wait.
Truck driving down the highway
with a friggin' stegasaurus
in the back.

Bar sign:
CINDY'S GONE HOG WILD!
I nudge my bride.

In love with
the little roadside sunflowers.

As usual, super-tight schedule, weird LSD GPS--
poor English woman likes to deliver us to
flower shops, municipal baseball diamonds.
We drive 160 miles blind.
2 radio shows in Ausin chaos.

Favorite Austin bumper sticker:
NOT A ZOMBIE.

Arrived in our beloved Omni hotel.
Upgraded to the world's biggest
executive suite. Jacuzzi! I find
a washing machine in the closet.
Bring me LUNCH! AC. CNN.
4:30 is a Santa Fe NPR interview. 7:00 reading.

I tweet that I love the Omni, and the Omni scares us
by tweeting back that they're happy we like it.
Be careful what you say!

#

McChrystal's melt-down, BP oil spill,
huge laughs radio interview then, oh no,
tornado sirens back in Illinois
and out little one crying in fear
on the phone.
Talk her through it.
Moments of utter helplessness.

Good event at Book People.
Cousin Dave Duty brought his laptop
so we could do a slide show.
Only 20 peeps at the beginning,
but over 50 at the end. Shoppers
kept wandering upstairs to see
what all the laughter was about.

Bought a book of Lucha Libre photos: I am nothing
if not cultured.

#

Couldn't sleep.

Breakfast with Amanda Ayre Ward. Wild woman.
Oops! Got to go to San Antonio!

It didn't take us long to reach--YAHOO--
Snake Farm. You bet:
I got a lovin' thang going on with a hot and depressed pig,
was flashed by a pervert monkey, held a pyton and
choked in the scent of burning hot doo-doo.
PS the monkey, when he was sure we were looking, made his nads
twitch and bounce.

Biker couple in black leather chaps
in 96 degree cloud of humid crap-steam
sat at a picnic table eating ice cream
with little wooden spoons.

#

Twig Bookstore. Lots of cousins.
Lots of Teresita/Saint of Cabora family.
We adjourned to a taco shop
and had an instant family reunion.

Hotel? Um. Our carpet was soaking wet.
Bathroom door was broken.
Found a wad of hair stuck to
the shower curtain.
Wow. Really? It's a nice chain, too.
But we were tired and decided to sleep.
Pinhead, in Hellraiser, threatens:
"Your Suffering Will Be Legendary,
Even In HELL!"
No comment.

In the morning, big scary TX skies.

A full day of driving ahead to get to Marfa and Alpine.
GPS dropped mescaline and thought Starbucks
was in Mexico.

Bumper sticker:
PALIN/JINDAL 2012.

Much coffee.
Hair metal on the radio.
It's our 100th honeymoon.

I heart Texas.

(Part 2 coming soon)

No really, this IS the last chance to vote!

2010-08-17T14:28:00.002-05:00

Please vote for Luis in One Book, One San Diego! Voting closes tomorrow and the one thing he'd love for his birthday, is the chance to celebrate in his hometown!
It's easy to vote and you don't have to live in San Diego. Click here or go to www.kpbs.org/one-book to register and make your choice.
Thanks for your support and enthusiasm. It means so much to both of us!
XOXO
Cindy

Arizona Lamentation

2010-08-05T18:09:00.003-05:00

We were happy here before they came.

This was always Odin's garden,
a pure white place.
Cradle of Saxons,
birthplace of Norsemen.

No Mexican was ever born here
until their racial hatred and envy
forced us to build a border fence.
But they kept coming.

There were never Apache Villages here--
we never saw these Navajos, Papagos,
Yaquis. It's a lie. Until their wagons
kept coming and coming. And their soldiers.

We worshipped at the great god's tree.
We had something good here.
We had family values and clean sidewalks.
Until those savages kept coming, took our dream

and colored it.

AZ SB1070

Last chance to vote!

2010-08-05T17:27:00.003-05:00

This is Cindy, hijacking Luis's blog before we head out for Squaw Valley in the morning.

Into the Beautiful North is one of three finalists for San Diego's One Book program. Right now, Luis is trailing in the voting, which seems unbelievable for a local boy who's written a book all about San Diego and Tijuana and the people who have most inspired his work. So I'm thinking maybe not everybody knows to vote!

Anybody can vote in this poll, you don't have to live in San Diego. Click here or go to www.kpbs.org/one-book/ to vote. The voting closes Aug. 9 so you have just a few days left. If you've already voted, it's OK to vote again!

All three books are incredibly worthy selections; KPBS and the San Diego Library did a great job of putting together a list. But we've had so much fun at one-city-one-book reads in other places, that we're really excited about the type of events we could put together if Luis comes home!

Thanks for your help!

The Road Goes on Forever

2010-08-02T13:55:00.002-05:00

"I've been gone away so long..." Chris Whitley

Three weeks of non-stop book tour, 48 hours to do laundry and pack, three weeks in England with a side trip to Paris. Home for ten days to try to work before going to Squaw Valley to turn my profoundly burned brain toward workshops...before my birthday...and school starting...and the Fall touring season kicks in. I've tried to keep some record of the journeys on Facebook and Twitter. Busy, busy, busy.

I hope to post some tour goodies here. Some sketches and impressions. Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I have this little prose-sketch style I like on the road. I call these "Wastelanders." Did about six books' worth this time. Don't worry, I won't bomb you with all of them.

It was interesting, driving across Texas. My pally the Christian rock rebel Rick Elias is playing Marfa right now. I was there a few weeks ago. Small world. But when you're road dogs, you walk in each other's shadow.

#

We were slamming along the hiway from San Antonio to Alpine. All you big tea bag fans of SB 1070--if you feel the US aint guardin the border real good from friggin beaners, you ought to travel that hiway sometime. Dang. I haven't seen that many Border Patrol guys...ever. BP was everywhere. They were even cutting drags along the side of the hiway just like in Devil's Highway. They stopped us and set the sniffer dogs on the car to see if we had anything juicy. We didn't. White trucks like small glaciers on fried carmine desert peaks. Helicopters. Dudes in Terminator head gear appearing out of the bushes on ATVs.

So, off we went, doing about 81, and a Texas State Trooper caught us. But somehow, instead of writing us a ticket, he ended up talking with us about books. It was a really great meeting, out there in the desert wind. The whole time this grace descended upon us, a huge dragonfly hovered outside my car window, staring. I was trying to watch it and the trooper at the same time. I felt like The Hummingbird's Daughter is still IN DA HOUSE.

#

Out beside the Pecos River, at the west end of the high bridge out there, we once stumbled upon an abandoned building. Motel? Gas station? Don't know. It was all amazing stuff--Cinderella and I were on our first big car trip then, and we parked on the Pecos bridge and walked out into the middle and kissed. Who says life can't be like a Joe Ely song?

We were scared by the abandoned building. It was full of bones. Every room was one foot, two feet dep in big bones. There was a stained mattress in there. And panties spiked to the wall with huge nails. Gulp.

We passed that wicked li'l joint again this year. But were were going like Mad Max and didn't stop this time. It was weirdly exhilarating to see it again, to wonder at its dark rich stinky bounty inside. When I got home, I looked up my old notes about it. You see, there was poetry and...stuff...on the walls. Here's what the walls said back in 1996:

Bursack
Eric
Spytko

66

In Life The Living And The Dead
Dwell In One Another's Arms
Only the Sand's Shift
Between Them.
Time Is An Oasis.

BULLDOGS.

Travelers Come Past You
And Move Away.
But Nothing Changes.

Viet-Nam.
3rd Here.

Kill Dan.
USMC.

When was I born?
Where did I come from?
Where am I going?
What am I?
"The Hopi Questions"

Smith
Tae Kwon Do
Rules

I'm Going Only
Where I
Desire

Fast Eddie
Pony Boy
Szpytko

I'll Chaneg Highways In a While
At The Crossroads
One more mile.
My path is lit by my own
FIRE.

ON THE ROAD I HAVE
TAKEN,
ONE DAY WALKING, I AWAKEN
AMAZED TO SEE
WHERE I HAVE COME
WHERE I'M GOING
WHERE I FROM

Headhuntasz

#

One more page of the American poem, etched in the night, somewhere out there, along the howling Pecos gorge, in a white room full of ghosts, torn panties, old blood, and bones. Glimpsed for a second, while pushing books like vaccuum cleaners upon strangers in the heat.

Joes said it best: "The road goes on forever, the party never ends...."

Love, L

Post Cards

2010-07-04T12:16:00.003-05:00

To everyone complaining about not getting the post-cards they wrote for: get in line, ya mugs! The cards went to fans at the events first, of course. We blew through about 500 of them. Now we're home for about one day. In fact, as I write, I'm home for two hours. Then we go to England for three weeks.

I applaud your patience...because that's ALL I CAN DO. Even if we tried to have your cards printed and delivered and mailed to you, I couldn't do it in two hours. Or two days.

But I have all your addresses. When we get back, the cards will go forth.

If you haven't requested one, feel free. Just know it'll take a while.

The Road Goes on Forever

2010-07-03T13:11:00.002-05:00

Hello, Friends. Back again. Got home yesterday afternoon after three weeks of travel. According to mapquest, the book tour took Cinderella and me on an 8,000 mile loop. Almost 3,000 miles by car. How about that. I kept journals the whole way, but I'll have to show you some of those later because tomorrow afternoon, we leave for London. I'll do a book reception and a reading over there in the UK. Is that the same trip, then? Or a new trip? Eh? Do I start a new series of notebooks, or simply carry on with the four I have from this one?

I learned a lot on this trip. One thing I learned is that I still think I'm 27 or 35 and I AM NOT. I think I look 35 or 40 and I DO NOT. Whoa. I creaked and got sick and was in pain and staggered around like grandpa losing his balance at the family picnic and sitting in the wading pool with his baseball cap half knocked off. On some brutal days, I looked like that too. But guess what. The fans don't care. The fans pour more love on you than you know how to process.

We left here and flew to Boston. From Boston, we drove to Rockport. (Toad Hall Books and the library.) Sheer Rockport love--100 people in the library. Lobster rolls. I found an ancient telegraph machine in a store and shipped it to myself. Every writer needs a telegraph machine. Then down to South Hadley (Odyssey Books), but first a visit to the CARE center for young mothers. We took them flowers. We were lost, so a kind fan drove in front of us from Odyssey to our hotel. Our pilot! The next day, we drove to Portsmouth, NH. (River Run Books.) Sweet good times with Twitter pals there--they live-streamed the event. All along that route, C drove and I fielded interviews on the iPhone like a real degenerate touring bar band burn-out. Saw a bad wreck out there with horses and trucks.

Puttered in Maine for only 50 miles or so then sped to Manchester, VT. We had a cabin in the mtns with a huge jacuzzi. Northshire Books--a small crowd, but a lively one. In the morning, back to Boston! Cambridge, actually. I used to hang out for many hours in the basement of harvard Books, and now here I was again--only this time it was my event. Lowry Pei, my ol' mentor was there. Many Twitter pals again.

The most brutal day followed. Up at 3:30, leave hotel by 4:00. 6:00 flight to Dallas. Arrive, meet driver, rush to Dallas Morning News for some kind of weird press conference. Change drivers. To library for luncheon/immigration lecture--100 people, one Mexi-hater shouting "MEXICAAAANS!" at me while her finger shook. O'SHIT! RUN AWAY! To airport in a limo. At this pojnt, the day wasn't making sense anymore. Fly to Houston. Rent a car. The Hertz goddess Miss Loretta got us a big juicy car upgrade for our epic TX/NM drive. Two interviews. Evening event at Brazos Books. Good pals showed up. I was sweating blood. Walking into walls.

In the morning, to Murder By the Book bookstore to sign PHOENIX NOIR (I happened to win the EDGAR, my dear--ahem!), and we sped off to Austin. Had the biggest hotel room ever built--even found a washing machine and dryer in our bedroom closet. Did radio shows in Austin from our hotel phone. That night, Book People. Cousin Dave Duty came and helped C run the powerpoint. I found an awesome Lucha Libre book! Dazed, we drove to San Antonio, for a gig at the Twig. Nice rhyme, eh? On the way, we stopped at Snake Farm and I fondled a python and a pig. There once was a gig at the Twig, where the author fondled a pig. The pig made a squeal, and started to reel, and the author was dancing a jig. The familia of TOMAS URREA and GABRIELA CANTUA came, so the first two rows were full of TERESITA vibes.

In the a.m., we booked out to Alpine, TX. If you don't believe your border is being sufficiently enforced, drive TX 90 from San Anto to Marfa. More USBP than I've ever seen. Even guys, a la Devil's Highway, cutting the drag right beside the highway. We got stopped and sniffed by Migra dogs. Then we got busted for speeding by Texas State Trooper K Turman. But we ended up talking books. Love ruled.

Great gig at Amy's wonderful bookstore, Front Street Books. We stayed in a real cowboy hotel. NPR radio in Marfa. Thewn the long endless slog to Santa Fe. Hundreds of miles of llano. Ten story dust devils. Abandoned towns looking burned and gutted. Roswell. Alien post cards. We sped to the Loretto Inn in Santa Fe and hit the glorious streets. Middle eastern traders have taken over many of the shops and are selling bull-pucky fake or mass-produced "Indian" stuff. How sad is that.

Garcia Street Books sponsored the event the next night. Holy cow! 160+ people. But the best thing EVER was that one of my idols--Gary Farmer, came to see me. I almost fell over. POWWOW HIGHWAY in the house! No time to gloat, because we had to get to an All Things Considered affiliate, and a PBS TV show, and the big mama at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque. How big a mama? Well, between Santa Fe and Burque, I signed 750 books. In two nights. Whew.

Up early, and rush to airport. Stall and wait two hours for a one hour flight. Ariive in Denver, and wait another hour because there are no cars. Rush to Tony and Pam's rancho where they run Bella Luna Books. No time to pet the donkeys of the friendly bull. Eat chicken. Drink something I don't remember what. Go to Tattered Cover. Nice 60 people event. May-lee Chai had a fruit basket delivered. Can you believe that? But the coolest thing was that, as we were dragging back to the car, two people came running up the street shouting my name. Huh? Wazzat? It was author Helen Thorpe, and her husband, Denver mayor (and future CO governonr) John Hickenlooper! Dude! Off to drinks!

Sadly, during my talk, my eye started to burn and spew white goo. By the next day, I had a mass hanging out of my face that looked like Davey Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean. Fun day at the doctor's office. After that. we rushed to John Dunning's house for a meal, and some of his atomic gin&tonics. On, on, ever on, to the Boulder Bookstore.

We stayed near the airport so we could get to the plane in time for a 7:30 flight to DC. Are you tired yet? I was. I am, just writing this. Boom, into DC. Immediate interview in the hotel room like Rod Stewart or something. Ha ha. Do ya think I'm popeyed? Off to chat and drinks with the awesome goddess, The Book Maven. Then Politics & Prose. I had this dark lump of bacon in my skull that used to be a brain.

Home.

The whole time, we were doing The Post Card Ministry. Post cards from Tres Camarones. We ended up distributing over 500.

Cinderella will put up pictures later. Right now, we're going to do laundry and make sure the kids are packed.

So. How was your summer vacation?

Will be thinking of you, L

The One That Starts It All

2010-06-19T07:13:00.002-05:00

And today: Nayeli's Cherished Postcard!
If you've read Into the Beautiful North, you recognize this postcard as Nayeli's cherished talisman from her father. Kankakee? A turkey? Not hard to understand why this would seem incredibly exotic to a young girl in tropical Mexico!
If you come to one of my readings on this tour, I will give you one of these postcards (or one of the Tres Camarones cards) already stamped and waiting for you to address to someone you love. Can you send them on a life quest? Or inspire a curiousity about someplace (someone? some thing?) unknown? Or maybe you need to inspire yourself ...
And remember, if you can't make a reading, email me your address and I'll mail you a postcard when I get home.
When was the last time you got a postcard in the mail? When was the last time you mailed one?

Nobody says Hola!

2010-06-18T08:39:00.002-05:00

In the lovely town of Tres Camarones, the townspeople have a quaint tradition of saying "hello" by saying "goodbye!" In Tres Camarones, you don't say Hola, instead the townspeople greet each other with cries of "Adios!" This is a true tradition in my father's hometown of Rosario, Sinaloa that I've always loved. So I knew I had to use it in my novel, Into the Beautiful North. And as part of The Postcard Ministry, we decided to showcase this little oddity. This is the second postcard in the series. At my readings, we're passing out stamped postcards and hoping you'll send one to a loved one with your own message (odd or not). If you can't make a reading (check the schedule on my events page), email me your address and I'll mail you one when I get home. When was the last time you got a postcard in the mail?

P.S. I took these photos when I was a kid visiting Rosario. This is the view out either side of my bedroom window when I stayed at my uncle's house there.

2010-06-17T08:38:00.002-05:00

We're out in Massachusetts, Day Three of Book Tour 2010 and I wanted to talk about The Postcard Ministry.

Those of you who've read Into the Beautiful North know about the tiny town of Tres Camarones (Three Shrimp) in Sinaloa. What you might not know is I based it on my dad's hometown of Rosario, Sinaloa. And I've got pictures!

Much of the motivation for Nayeli to take her epic journey is because of her sacred object: a postcard from her father. Thinking about that postcard, I realized that we don't get mail anymore. We get bills. And catalogues. And fliers. But when was the last time you got a postcard? Or mailed one?

So for those who come to see me on this tour, we're bringing postcards, already stamped and ready to mail. My hope is you will mail it to a loved one (yourself?) with your own words of wisdom, creating your own talisman. Or, you can address it to yourself and leave it with me and I'll mail it from someplace else on the road.

For those of you who can't come see me, send me an email and we'll send you one when we get home.

And for all to enjoy, I'm going to put up the postcards here, one a day, so you can see what they look like.

And then, I'm going to put up the pictures we're using in our little slide show so you can see the real people and places that inspired this story.

Cinderella and I are having a great time out here. Everyone has been very enthusiastic and supportive. Hope to see you out on the road!

P.S. This is a picture I took of fishing boats in Rosario around 1980. Cindy made up the postcards

Time for a road trip; bring your iphone!

2010-06-07T10:20:00.010-05:00

I think I forgot to tell you this: Into the Beautiful North is now an iphone app!

It's summertime and doesn't a road trip sound like the perfect plan? Into The Beautiful North releases in paperback next week. But you can ride along with Nayeli and Tacho now on your iphone.

Even better, you can practice your Spanish by trying Rumbo al Hermosa Norte, the Spanish version in an iphone app.

And for those of you who'd like to understand more about immigration and crossing the border, The Devil's Highway is also available for your iphone.

Luis Urrea: I'm nothing if not full service!

My high school graduation

2010-06-05T13:48:00.002-05:00

As long as we're in the midst of graduation season, I thought you'd enjoy pictures of my high school graduation, recently unearthed in a desk purge.

This is me with Prudence, graduating from Clairemont High School, Class of '73.

Have no idea who the woman is in the background. She's my favorite part of this picture!

Bless Me, Albuquerque II: Rudy Rules

2010-05-29T11:56:00.002-05:00

I first became aware of Rudolofo Anaya in 1978. I was working with the "relief crew" (Across the Wire, etc.) in Tijuana. To make some money--something I never had--I went to work for Cesar Gonzalez at San Diego Mesa College. I was his bilingual tutor and TA in Chicano Studies. This is when I heard of the legenday Bless Me, Ultima. But I was deeply into the world of Baptist missions folks, and didn't know if I could handle anything like curanderas. I had been raised among curanderas, mind you, but Baptists, at least these Baptists, and healers/indigenous magic/Catholicism, didn't mix very well. Perhaps I was having an identity crisis. But I did surrender to a book that changed my world: Rudy's Tortuga. Everyone should read it. Especially the gorgeous edition that has a turtle in place of the "o" in the title.

One day it came to pass that Rudy was coming to San Diego to attend events at the Centro Cultural de la Raza. Cesar sent my beloved Berthe Edington and me to collect Rudy and drive him around town. Well, I had never gotten a license--why get a license when you would never have enough money to buy a car? So Bertha drove, and I waxed poetic. Saint Rudy, in the house! We took him to lunch, feeling awe. I did not know he was devilish. When I asked him what he wanted to eat, he said, sincerely, "I think I'll order a bowl of fruit. I live in Albuquerque. You know, it's a desert. We don't have any fresh fruit there. I have only tasted fruit from a can." REALLY??? I breathed. Duh. It must have been hard for him not to laugh.

Later, Cesar took me out with Rudy. I was in the back seat. I had immersed myself in Heart of Aztlan as well as Tortuga. I owned Ultima, but had not yet ventured in. I asked Rudy what he said to Chicanos who, working the Marxist dialectic and the culture revolution, chided him for not being "political" enough in his work. Saint Rudy startled me by announcing, "I tell them to fuck off."

Gasp.

He said: "The personal IS political. When you have written about youer little grandmother, and you make the reader believe she is HIS little grandmother, then you have committed the most powerful political act."

Rudy became a generous mentor--though I didn't see him for years. In the late 80s I was touring around the US with my first wife. (Yes, I had the American practice marriage. I wasn't very good at it.) I had corresponded with Rudy over the years. I was editing a Chicano journal in Boston. (I wasn't very good at that, either. Though I can say the dry rot that wrecked the marriage wrecked my editing as well.) I called Rudsy in 'Burque and he took us out to eat. He ordered green chile--so I did too. He said, "Can you take it?" Wot? My good man--I happen to be from Tijuana. So they brought the bowls to us and I took a bite and steam blew out my ears and blood flowed from my eyes and I choked it down begging Jesus to cause it to rain in my mouth. Rudy chuckled, by the way. Sweat poured down my face. "Good," I croaked.

He wante dus to stay in his house. But I didn't want to cause a fuss. We were tenting in the KOA up near Santa Fe. He could not believe someone would choose to sleep in a tent. But I insisted. And off we went. Of course, that summer was the time that some sort of tornado made its way up the valley and blew apart a bunch of things, including the KOA. I was standing there in the dark staring at the ruins of our campsite. The manager came out and said, "There's a call for you in the office." What?

I went in and picked up the phone and Rudy said, "I TOLD you to stay in my house!" He ordered me to get my butt back down to 'Burque post-haste. Piled the wet, dirty stuff in the back of the car and drove back down. Rudy was waiting for us in his pajamas, in his car, hair standing on end. He was not amused, though later we have laughed about this night.

Later, Rudy came to the rescue of Across the Wire when nobody cared about it. He led a charge of blurbers like John Nichols. He also published the story that has done better than all my other stories, "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses," in his Blue Mesa Review. You can still occasionally hear it on NPR's "Selected Shorts."

Like I said in Albuquerque: with no Ultima in my DNA, there would be no Hummingbird's Daughter. Without Rudy in the world, there would be no me.

Told you there'd be a movie!

2010-05-29T09:17:00.002-05:00

Getting ready for book tour to start in a couple of weeks, trying to finish as much of Hummingbird II before we go. Also working on updating/upgrading the website. And in our web browsings, we stumbled on this amazing gem.
First we laughed our #$% off, but then we were really pleased that clearly this kid read the book (check out "rooster boy's" red hair!) and it made an impact. Having helped our kids through our share of school projects, I know that they are a mixed blessing, but we totally loved this on all kinds of levels. Check him out!

Bless Me, Albuquerque

2010-05-23T13:09:00.002-05:00

I have come to honor Rudolfo Anaya.

Late spring in Illinois. The heat has fallen on us like a wool blanket just out of the dryer. This morning, there was a huge raccoon lying in our yard, trembling, having trouble walking. Big as a dog. Our idiot cat decided to stalk him. Oh, great, a rabies apocalypse waiting to happen. But the poor beast hove to its feet and staggered into the brush and vanished. I think he was hit by a car. We're all watching for him, ready to call him in if anyone in the neighborhood sees him. I missed all this drama, so I'm relating the tale as told by Cinderella. Hey, I was sleeping late. I was wiped out from my trip to 'Burque to receive the National Hispanic Cultural Center literary award.

People razz me lately. "Did you win any major national awards THIS WEEK?" is a common jibe. OK, yeah--I won the Edgar Award the other day. Uh-huh. And I won this award this week. So there. I'm a one man Mongol horde. But good things, like bad things, are seasonal, are sporadic, and are slightly ephemeral. I like moments like this because they remind me, when I'm mourning something awful--like the death of the genius poet Rane Arroyo--that all moments sooner or later struggle to their feet like our ailing coon and hide in the bushes. I suspect I don't register these awards because I think they are, somehow, fake, or an accident, or somebody somewhere is pitying poor ol' me. I think: oh yeah? Well, I didn't win the ________ (your favorite here) award! And that is a load of happy crappy because I never, never wrote for awards! Or reviews! I wrote, and write, to WRITE. But, um, listen, if you want to send me some more statues and handsome framed certificates, by all means, please, go right ahead and do it. Because, when all kidding is done, it is an honor that I can't quite wrap my head around. Probably too much shame, poverty, desperation and loneliness in my foundation. Maybe God is trying to shore up the old bricks.

Well, I rushed off to 'Burque. I was on the Southwest Airlines cattle-car flight, B group. Thought I'd never get a seat, at least not a seat that wasn't between unhappy people, but I did. Hallelujah. Reading Lee Child. How can you take a plane and not read Lee Child?

Got to town in time for the lunch and the open-mike reading at the Cultural Center. As I sat at the table with a wonderful group pof authors, agents, editors, a woman come over demanding a signature on her BEAUTIFUL NORTH. She said, warmly, "You're not going to like hearing this, but HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER is not a good book." Everyone turned to her with their mouths open. She said, "What do you want me to do? It's no good." Then she gave me her stories and asked that I help her get published. I have been laughing about this for two days. It's so classic.

I saw the fabulous Lucha Corpi. Hung out with Rigoberto Gonzalez. Was so thrilled to finally meet Juan Felipe Herrera. Homeboy! A Logan barrio boy like me. Though, as he pointed out, "I was from the lowlands--you were from the heights." Juan Felipe and I were laughing it up like maniacs. It was so good to see him. The Hummingbird-hater accosted him and insulted one of his books. That was priceless, watching his eyebrows go up to the top of his head.

Rushed back to the hotel to shower and iron my good clothes and get back to the Centro in time for the banquet and the awards. Now, RUDY ANAYA. I knew, right away, that I was going to dedicate the award to Rudy. If you know my bad book, HD, you know it owes its DNA to BLESS ME, ULTIMA. I owe so much to Rudy, perhaps I'll post a further blog here about his role in the lives of so many of us. I like to tell people he is our uncle. He has fed, housed, edited, promoted, hosted, published, educated, scolded, inspired, directed so many of us--sometimes I feel like Rudy has upheld the majority of the Latino literary world, or at least its southwestern division.

Rudy wife, Pat, passed away about four months ago. And Rudy has not been feeling well. But they ntold mer he was coming for the event--his first public appearance since the tragedy. And there he was! Beaming. Swamped with well-wishers and fans. Using a handsome carved cane. "I bought it as an art object," he said. "I never thought I'd be using it!"

I won't grand-stand here. I'll just say we drank mucho vino tinto. Demetria Martinez and Rigoberto and I sat with Rudy. Musicians played, and Rudy let loose a few gritos. I was so happy to see him happy. Then, when I spoke, I dedicated the award to him. I said, "Without Ultima, there is no Hummingbird. And without you, Rudy, there is no me." Dude. I cried. So did everybody else. It was a good moment. At the end there, when I got back to our table, I was able, in the tumult, to say, "I love you, Rudy."

Late that night, I joined a bunch of my colleagues in the hotel lobby. Just basking in the art-light. You know that light? Were you a bohemian like me in your youth? Were you up all night arguing movies, books, rock and roll? Going to bed at dawn after some mad poetry duel or systematic play-through of every Groundhogs album in sequence? Maybe that was only Rick Elias and David Thomson and me.

You know, here I am Naperville dad. Going to high school graduation. Taking out the trash. hanging with the neighbors drinking beer and complaining about the yard work. But then I take off my Dadman suit and put on my Writerman suit. Shazam! I join the other superheroes of the typing world and laugh all night. Well, OK, we're all moms and dads. So I make it to about midnight. They talk big, but they stifle yawns and stagger off at the same time I do. We have planes to catch. Families. Kids and dogs and lawns and sick coons in the yard.

Rick Najera and Stephanie Elizondo Greist and assorted pals and Rick's lovely wife all enjoyed the bohemian vibe for an hour or two. And the Hummingbird-hater staggered around insulting people. I went to bed so grateful. So happy.

And Rudy has asked me to bring Cinderella to his house to stay when we come back on book tour in June. BEAUTIFUL NORTH paperback, y'all. It's going to be a marathon. But I cannot wait to see Rudy again. I cannot wait to try to offer back just a little of the goodness he has brought us all.

I'll write you some of that story a little later. I have to go out and make sure our kids aren't getting chased by rabid mammals. I have to go out and give thanks....

Yrs., Luigi

Care of the Soul

2010-05-14T14:33:00.003-05:00

Thomas More, in his books on the soul, tells of how one cares for the soul. (Yes, you'd have to accept the fact that you have a soul.) And one cares for the soul not necessarily in great gestures and grand art, but in small daily routines. The soul flourishes in bread dough, play, reading, dirt. Digging in the dirt nourishes the soul. I like that. When I garden, I think I'm planting novels, poems.

I've been putting some chapters of Hummingbird's Daughter II in today, that's for sure.

I'm mourning the loss of my pal, the great poet Rane Arroyo. And I'm getting ready for several soulful things: Megan's high school graduation, book tour. But most on my mind right now is the garden: in a few days, a crew of landscape architects hits our front yard and remakes it. Most of my stuff out there will be gone, baby, gone. Japanese maples and pear trees and all kinds of cool new plants and grasses and a new brick seating area and a wall. We will sit out there in the afternoons sipping tea and spying on our street like the old farts we just about are.

So I'm saving bleeding hearts, chrysanthemums (thinking of Basho and the haiku masters), lavender (thinking about France), columbines--my colorful connection to the holy Rocky Mtns. I am astounded that the columbines have decided that the entire planet must be covered in columbines. I have columbines coming out my ears. You want a columbine? How about a baby maple? My trees--King Ralph and Queen Sally (named, of course, by Chayo) drop 10,000,000 helicopter seeds and I am faced with the Godzilla-like task of annihilating little tiny forests every spring. Hate it. For a San Diego boy, used to brown, it feels wrong to off a tree. Even if it's two inches tall.

Oh my. These hands are black with Illinois soil. I'm soaking up that Vitamin D in the sun. I'm thinking of Rane, and hoping perhaps a bright red bleeding heart will blossom to remind me of him.

Soul--it's all soul.

There's a New Sheriff in Town

2010-05-03T17:59:00.002-05:00

I guess you heard. I'm embarrassed to make too much of this, but my story "Amapola" from the excellent anthology PHOENIX NOIR won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Cinderella and I were in NYC for that and for the cool signing/reading/powerpoint debut of MR. MENDOZA'S PAINTBRUSH at Word Brooklyn. Christopher Cardinale and I did a li'l duet, and I read a section as he showed images on the big screen. It was a wonderful, bohemian, night. We met our twitter pal, Joe Wallace. Joe's jumping out of his skin because his novel, DIAMOND RUBY is dropping May 4. Yeah! Get it! Get two! Joe is the ambassador of love and good cheer, and he's also a good writer. Baseball fans and readers of all stripes won't be sorry. A novel that's getting really great reviews already. I'm tellin' ya.

So there we were in the basement with all kinds of Brooklyn cool kids--artistas and muralists and tweeters and bloggers (Aunt Feather from twitter was there). Liz, my beloved publicist and Sarah Murphy from Little, Brown came. We snuck out for drinks afterwards. Making the Brooklyn arty scene in a cool bar with a pit bull under the table.

We like to stay at the Fitzpatrick Hotel at Grand Central. The desk staff are all Irish with lovely Irish accents. And it's right around the corner from Little, Brown. And there's great coffee next door, and a great bar on the other side of the lobby. We went out and met with geoff Shandler and plotted and planned the Hummingbird II and the INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH paperback domination of the world scenarios. Sandwiches in the board room. Free books. Saw our pub-pals in there. Then we were out on the rbicks, lookjing for a nice shirt for me to wear to the Edgars. The shirt-god led us to Kenneth Cole, where the young man behind the counter knew exactly the shirt for me. I heard him telling C he was marrying his boyfriend. "You're getting married?" I asked. "He better put a ring on this!" he quipped.

We walked in joy and romance all over the place, then staggered up to our room for a nap and a chill before the banquet (at the Grand Cetral Grand Hyatt, also around the corner). OK, so I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay in bed and make believe the whole thing wasn't happening. But I got on my suit, and C got all dolled up in uncomfortable shoes, and we limped to the Hyatt to face our fates.

Well, yes, there we were. Lost in the big crowd of famous and powerful peeps who all knew each other but didn't know us. I was like: "Holy shit! There goes C.J. Box!" C: "Oh?" Me: "OMG! There's Lee Child!" C: "Do tell." It was time for the group photo of short story nominees. One of the judges whispered to me, "Do you have a speech prepared?" I laughed. "I'm not going to win it," I said. She said, "Get a speech ready." OH OH.

We sat at the Akashic Books table with Johnny Temple, our rock star publisher. No, seriously--a rock star. He was in the band Girls Against Boys. You saw him on MTV.

I was tweaking: There's Alafair Burke! There goes Laura Lippman! That's John Hart! There's Lee Child again!

And hey--I won.

I gave Alafair a shout-out. later, she told us her phone lit up right away, and she cried, "That's right! Say my name, bitch!"

AS we left, a tall guy in a pink shirt called, "How'd it feel to crush Dennis Lehane?" Johnny Temple said, "You know who that was? Harlan Coben!"

I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS STUFF HAPPENS TO ME.

The next day was a hang-out day. Romance and stunned WTF Just Happened day. We walked more miles. Walked to Times Sq. Watched them film--egad--The Smurfs at Bryant Park. Back to the Fitz for drinks and gossip w/ Liz and Eve, her assistant. Then Ken Wheaton, novelis and my ol' homeboy from Louisiana came over. Oh, it made getting up Saturday hard to do.

Dragged home and got a call--Shawn Phillips is on a massive North American tour and asked to aprk his tour bus at our house. Yo, I am nothing if not rock'n'roll, ahem, so I said sure. And this 50' behemoth pulled up and SP laid siege and sleeps out there like a mad uncle and is making pasta sauce in our kitchen right now.

Tomorrow, I have my gig with Dave Eggers in Chi.

Did I mention I cannot believe this stuff happens to me?

See you Wed. for the Cinco de Mayo aprty at the bookstore in Glen Ellyn.

Oh, and don't hate me because I'm beautiful--Galveston TX just chose Beautiful North as their all-city read. See y'all down there around Mardi Gras.

Wish U were here...
L

A Good Day to Live

2010-04-19T13:26:00.003-05:00

Good Day, Kolas-- I'm here getting ready to head into Chi for yet another lecture event. This time I'm only 1/3 of a panel, so the pressure's off. I had the worse week for fitness and health ever. Well, not all week. I had an amazing time in Yakima, WA. Huge crowd at the talk, and a 250 people luncheon. The theater in Yakima is gorgeous and old, and it's haunted. You know what I like. I like haunted buildings. This one's haunted by Shorty the stagehand who committed suicide there in 1938.

In the greenroom, the walls are autographed from the 20s burlesque to the present. Bob Hope, Gene Autrey. Salman Rushdie. Lisa Ling. Naomi Judd.

I got to tour some of the arhchard business in the valley. Amazing visit to the apple-processing plant. You never imagine how much high tech goes into your lunchbox apple. The charming and capable Rosa (from Mexicali) led me through the maze of robots and computers and moving doodads and scanning dealybobs. Gala apples moved in a river of red.

Then my hosts kindly took me to their wine cave. Great racks of fat oak barrels. Hundreds of gallons. The vintner was there and took me deep inside andgave me samples. He knew the personality of every barrel, the nature of every generation of oak and grape. Frankly, after about 6 samples, I thought it all tasted GREAT. We ended with a killer port that was still hyper-alcoholic...you know how the youngstrers are. Rambunctious. Bold, yet insinuating, with a slight bouquet of spring flowers in its nose, while breaking in a buttery fashion across the tongue, leaving a misty aftertaste. Uh. Or something. I was trying to walk straight.

TOO BUSY TO WORK OUT. Too freakin' tired. But there was a jacuzzi in my room. It was big enough for us all to have a party. I bubbled myself to sleep in there.

Up at 4:15 for a long flight home and up in the morning for a long drive to Champaign to watch Eric's Junior Recital. He KILLED it. I was stunned at how good he was. Go, sonny boy! But...the worst motel ever. Out in the sticks. Smelled like an old folks' home. Bad beds. Bad water. Dirt and dust.

Bad college boy food all weekend.

I lectured on Sunday at the library, and we drove home--caught in traffic delays almost two hours. Look, if you're trying to get healthy, don't hang out with college boys. Bad pizza at 10:00? Really? I'm dying.

So, back to trainer Wed. I'm going to be destroyed. Smoke is going to come out of my body. Because I have sinned. And retribution is coming. Sigh.

Oh well. Made mucho dinero this week.

AND TODAY WE DELIVER THE FIRST HALF OF HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER II TO MY EDITOR.

It is a good day.

Almost Home

2010-04-11T16:19:00.002-05:00

Boo-Boo the cat has figured out that, if she sneaks into our bedroom at 5:45 and starts knocking things off our nightstand--like the phone, the radio--it'll wake us up so we can feed her.

I am getting the first 350 pp. of Hummingbird's Daughter II (I can't find a title I like yet) finished this weekend. I don't like blogs that boast about how nifty the author is, but I rock. I RULE. This is the best prose I have ever been able to write. I'm thankful for that.

Sometimes, you write past your own limit. Does that make sense? Especially if you surrender to the process that I try to embrace (see Lu Chi's WEN-FU, or my own attempts on FB and twitter to explain "eloquent trust"), you find yourself exiting your own zone and entering a zone beyond. I ahve to catch up to the words that sometimes make themselves do stuff I couldn't figure out on my own. I spoke a few posts ago about the discipline of joy; I'd like to amend that to add the discipline of trust. It takes a while. Like learning you can swim.

But...oh no...that 350 pp is the first half. DANG! Help me, somebody! Make me some tea! The trouble with going epic is that, you know, you write A WHOLE NOVEL'S WORTH and then have to get up the next day and write another! I can do it. I've been doing my treadmill and my TRX and my sit-ups and curls.

Also in this process has been my data-mining, trying to get my thousands of pages of source material in some semblance of order. I told my editor I have lost or misplaced enough for a PhD dissertation. And still I have bins of stuff. Folders, boxes, disks, notebooks. Once the book's done, I promise, I am going to make the world's biggest Teresita bibliography available. For all the scholars, MA students, and fellow authors who are sure they can do a better job than I did. (I know you're writing that book, Sandra!)

David Romo and I have kicked around the idea of an annotated bibliography. He has some top secret stuff in El Paso. I have hired assssins to take him out so I can steal his archives. Who knows. I am also thinking of a brief non-fiction book that would talk about all the strange things that happened to me on this hechizero-path. Duende upheavals for sure.

Twenty years...now twenty-five years. Coming to a close soon. I have a pile of other projects. Two books of poetry, a new novel or two, some stories, a YA book, some non-fiction ideas, and I want to publish my drawings. I have twenty years' worth of stuff that wants Teresita to get out of the way. But once that's clear, then what? I have more!

If you saw my posting from Tucson Festival of Books, you saw when the shaman blessed me without a word. That was one of the coolest things ever. I wish I could find him and tell him it's working.

Oh...but he knows.

By the way--U of Illinois named me Distinguished Professor. I am still shocked. As, no doubt, are my colleagues. I told my boss: "You should have named me Distracted Professor."

Back to work. Got a lecture in Chi tomorrow. Off to Yakima on Tuesday.

Thinking of you,
L

Boo-Boo is Evil

2010-04-07T18:06:00.002-05:00

Whew. I've been writing like crazy on the Hummingbird sequel. We're close to the first 350 pp being DONE. I cranked out nearly 60 pp today in new stuff and revision. It's so adult. It's so rich. I will confess now that I'm getting excited.

But I'm not here to talk about that right now. I am here to complain about my cat. Boo-Boo. You see, Boo-Boo is evil.

She looks like the black dragon in that 3-D movie. We always knew she had a wicked streak. But the other day, we left a steak out on a platter. hey, she's a small cat. No prob. BUT SHE STOLE THE STEAK. She stole the steak and ATE IT. It was bigger than Boo-Boo.

Now we have realized that Boo has organized a midnight crime syndicate in our house. I don't know where she thinks she's going, but she has targeted one wall of our hallway and is apparently trying to tunnel through it. Boo is making a break for it! Scratching her way into the drywall.

But get this: she has formed a gang with our dogs. They are working in collusion. There were some bits of ham left over in a container. I was going to use them for dog food in the morning. But Boo, master-mind, apparently got up on the counter, opened the container, got the ham and dropped it to the dogs!

Now, what I need to figure out is, what do the dogs owe Boo-Boo? Eh? What heinous debt is she going to collect? What hellish plot have they bought into for four measly slices of ham?

Somebody...help us...before it's too late.

Good Morning, New Mexico

2010-04-05T20:59:00.002-05:00

I'll be on the air Tuesday morning on Albuquerque's NPR affiliate, KUNM, from 8:00-9:00 am. If you're in the area and up having coffee, check it out.

1 on 1 with Maria Hinojosa

2010-04-02T15:58:00.003-05:00

Last fall, I taped a lengthy interview with award-winning Latina Maria Hinojosa (my Tijuana homegirl!). We talked about borders, politics, books, music, everything.

I don't much like to watch myself on TV, but her show will air on PBS next Tuesday. TiVo it and enjoy it at your leisure!

For now, she's posted a preview on her YouTube channel. You can see it here.

Frank Zappa Said...

2010-03-31T17:53:00.002-05:00

..."The torture never stops." I've been thinking about this lately. I will write more about this in our continuing coversation about craft and writing and the writing life. But things are on my mind, a convolution of things and events. Lots of feelings. Yes: I won the National Hispanic Cultural Center Award--partially for writing, but partially for helping others. I have to admit, that part makes me really happy. And proud.

I received a letter from a "friendly" fan who hid the zinger in the tail of her note: how do I reconcile my early "missionary" work in Tijuana with my strong anti-Christian bias in Into the Beautiful North? Um. You know something funny? Exactly seven days before this note-in-sheep's-clothing arrived, I was mocked for an hour by an atheist writer for my strong pro-Christian bias in Into the Beautiful North! DOH! Cosmic joke's on me this week! I will have to address this stuff in a few days. It's just too rich. All I'll say is this: one of them was paying attention, and one of them can't apparently read a cereal box.

But the torture part. It's the grim inner echoes, isn't it? It's the dark basement of the soul with all its cobwebs and regrets. I have a desert in me. It yearns for rain.

So, I had some oral surgery this week. Who wouldn't be bummed? I mean, man! I had a bad molar. And the roots of this molar had grown into my sinus. Hope you're not eating right now. They got that stuff out, but they had to put a dead man's bone up in there. I joked on Twitter that my mouth is now haunted. Lots of stitches.

But, you see, when I was a boy, my father was in a panic. I was weak, and I was Catholic, and I was American and I was quite possibly gay. He was sure I was gay becauise I wanted to be a priest and I didn't like cigarettes. Ironic, considering the current crises. But this was entirely based on my generally non-macho personality back then. He was a Mexican military man, and he had suffered heavy experiences. Violence. Deaths. I think it made him crazy. I think his panic wasn't all about me--I think his panics were also about himself. My dad loved me, no doubt. Well, I had doubts. Like many sad kids, I knew he didn't always like me, even if he loved me. Now, when people feel that way about you, they do things out of "love." Thinking they'll make you better, more acceptable, tougher. Things that feel, deep in that basement or far out in that black desert, like torture.

I was terrified of doctors and needles and pain. I cried. So my dad orchestrated a stratagem for making me tougher. He convinced my mom that dentists in Tijuana were cheaper than San Diego. True. I ate too much candy. True. Too many cavities, also true. So he took me to his dentist, and he had told the dentist that I was an American weakling, so they agreed to do all my dental work without anesthesia. And my dad could stay in the room so they could both scold me when I writhed or cried. "Pussy!" "Asshole!" Hmm. I don't know how macho it made me, but they were right in a certain sense--it made me tougher.

I didn't like Marathon Man much when I saw it, though.

Yeah, now I have a wonderful high-tech dentist. The assistant told me, "You were calm." If they only knew. I have been sad so deep inside all week and just realized why. Pain makes me feel bad, of course. Getting old makes me feel bad. But the sorrow of those brightly lit white rooms with those awful tools and that smell and those angry men looming over me. Wow. Something so tawdry and stupid, so long ago, just breaks my heart. It makes me sad in a way that doesn't even want me to write.

You see? Pain wants us silent. So to hell with that. Sing, baby. Shout. Laugh and talk and talk and talk.

When something good comes along, like this NHCC award, think about that.

When letters come that you want to burn, think of a way to answer them with heart and wisdom.

Listen to Frank Zappa!

Love, L

NHCC Literary Award

2010-03-31T08:30:00.002-05:00

Just found out this week that I will be honored with the National Hispanic Cultural Center's bi-annual Literary Award at the National Latino Writers Conference in May. To be on a list that includes Rudy Anaya, Pat Mora, Denise Chavez and Martin Espada is humbling.

For me, what mattered even more than the recognition of my work is that the award honors a writer who has "impacted the productivity and success of other writers." I would have accomplished nothing without Rudy Anaya and the other writers who helped me -- and continue to do so. Giving back by reaching out to other writers is the only way I can repay their efforts for me.

Thank you, NHCC. I am honored. I look forward to seeing you in May.

To read more about it, see here.

My Life in Rock And Roll

2010-03-29T10:21:00.002-05:00

Shawn Phillips wrote a song inspired by The Devil's Highway called, well, "The Devil's Highway."

Here it is in concert:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEuTTsGSdoo

Funny story about my boyhood, too.

To Fairfield, From Kankakee

2010-03-24T15:56:00.002-05:00

Had no idea the amazing folks at the Kankakee Public Library wrote the sweetest letter in the world to the amazing folks at the Fairfield Public Library after Fairfield chose Into the Beautiful North for its One Book read.

This made me cry (again). Kankakee represents so much to me, as a writer and as a citizen of the world. And what I hoped to do with Into the Beautiful North was show what a small piece of America might hold for someone looking for hope and kindness.

So click here and scroll down to the Letter from Kankakee. As we re-jigger the website for the paperback launch, the links there will be an essential part of the new page for Into the Beautiful North.

Thanks Kankakee, as always.

Hasta La Vista, Baby

2010-03-22T18:44:00.003-05:00

Heading out for Texas tomorrow morning. Crack of dawn. And from Texas to NY the next day BEFORE the crack of dawn. From airport to Fairfield CT for their one-city-one-book event for Into the Beautiful North. Then, pant pant, from there across country to Oregon. Airline won't let me check in early, which means DHS will squint at me and give me a load o' shite this week because I have really weird chains of one-way tickets. I've only been on planes every month since 2004!

So I won't be here to chat with you for a few days. However, we're having a great time over at my Facebook Fan Page. When I get back, I'm going to focus on all questions and comments people put up while I'm on the road. If you want to talk, or want to know anything, go there. I'll be answering next Sunday.

Festive in Tucson

2010-03-17T11:38:00.007-05:00

It was funny to go to Tucson for their Tucson Festival of Books (TFOB) after such a long and nasty Chicago winter. No big coats! The snow had finally melted out of our yard. But flying in, we saw snow on the Arizona peaks. Hmm. No snow in Chicago, but snow in Tucson. It's a topsy-turvy world.

This was my second TFOB, and frankly, I was wondering who would want to see me again. I got some suprises, though. Like, a few hundred surprises. The first one was our rental car--a bad-ass metalflake blue Dodge Charger. Now, I will say right here that I have rented a billion Focuses, KIAs, Hyundais, even a few Chevy Malibus. But I was never handed the keys to a metalflake monster. Go, Dollar! I'm a true-(metalflake)blue San Diego boy who yearned for a hot car to cruise Clairemoint Drive and astound Prudence, Rockie Lee and my beloved Carol Moore. Oh, I would have probably made my girlfriend Colette really giddy in a Charger. But I was driving Keds and Converse hi-tops and never even had a car.

The Charger was vicious. Evil. Fat and bulgy. In short: I was in love with myself. Mr. Male Menopause, announcing to Cinderella that it wanted to kill the BMW beside us. I composed poems about it eating Priuses. She Twittered: "That's just sad." But my car UNDERSTOOD ME. We rolled up to the El Conquistador resort (TFOB knows how to take care of its authors) and rumbled around like a jaguar robot, scattering terrified quail. Um, she was driving, actually. But I was the baddest possible passenger in the desert, casting wicked ass-kicking passenger stare-downs at all other drivers, especially those bastards in Mustangs.

We went to the get-together/banquet. The blessings began to shower down right away. Saw our beloved Robert Boswell, and Bozzed it up w/ him. People kept stopping me to say hi. The editor of Hummingbird Review (you'd better start reading it!) came along. Hugs all the way around. Then Mr. Desierto, the reigning genius of flora and fauna, Gary Paul Nabhan showed up. Turns out he's doing a book: Teresita's Plants. Yes! The Yaqui sacred plants of Hummingbird's Daughter and the real world. Asked me to write the intro. All monies to go back to Yaqui women's groups. How utterly perfect is that?

On to the banquet. We were at table 11. Sitting at the table next to us was mystery queen, JA Jance. One of the coolest people at TFOB. Cinderella whispered, "There's Janis Ian!" Yo! I used to be all crushed out on Janis when I was "At Seventeen" (nudge nudge--witty authorial reference) and watching her on stuff like, what? Midnight Special. Maybe Mike Douglas. At one point, when they forced all us writing wretches to stand and be applauded, she said, "Hi, I'm Janis Ian." I said, "I know. I love you." She squinted up at me with a HUH? look. Later, during a break, she said, "Do I know you?" I said, "No. I was just one of those boys who could cry over your songs." Yeah, baby. Me'n'Janis. BFFs. I had the best time gossipping with her and JA Jance.

We dragged off to the hotel and fell into bed, totally exhausted. I was awakened the next morning by Cinderella gone psycho on our TRX exercise system and suqatting and push-upping and deep-knee-bending. Are U kidding me??? I was doing the patented Luis Pillow On The Head exercise routine. But I LEAPT from bed in my blue underpants BY GOD and showed her a friggin' thing or two about EXERCISE! &*%#@$!!! We did planks and high rows and high curls and whatever blood-squirt out of your eyes morning torture. We'd show all the happily relaxing people attending TFOB! "Keep your core tight," my peach gasped. I replied, "I HAVE NO CORE." Ug, grunt, huff, grrrg.

Trucks, motorcycles and Toyotas fell to the curb in fear as the Charger awoke and paced around Tucson looking for fresh meat.

I had my morning event at 11:30. Tom Miller was doing the onstage chat w me. There's no way to tell these stories w/out feeling like a jerk. I think of the Bonzo Dog Band song, "Look at Me I'm Wonderful." Sorry. Nuff sed. So, um, the theater was full, actually. About 350 peeps in there. They tossed out over 60 people, and one of the escorts told me there were 100 people outside being barred from entering. I was shocked. The great master, Simon Ortiz was there. I was thrilled when Simon stepped up to ask a question and I said, "the Master, Simon Ortiz," and the audience broke out in applause for him. Yes. You have to pay your respects.

Terribly sorry, but it went swimmingly well, and everyone was in a high state of hilarity. Did I mention that the Bonzo song says, "I'm not a bit like you or you--I'm a super show-biz star"? Like, dude, how do you talk about this stuff? Break out the cheese whizz, man, 'cause it's gonna get cheesy in here. Perhaps I will simply say that the signing line thereafter was 1 1/2 hours long. After this, though, I had to go to the UA bookstore for another signing, and this was more classic in nature. That is, you sit at a table looking embarrassed, and folks drift by, look at your book(s), smile wanly and condescendingly, and head off for the diet book section. Cinderella was standing with that damned king of editorial cartoons, Fitz, and they enjoyed mocking me every time somebody walked by. "Hey Luis Urrea!" Fitz hollered. "Don't you need to go to the BATHROOM?" Since I am the sensitive shaman who wrote Hummingbird's Daughter, I can't be seen shaking my fist at my wife or Tucson's most famous cartoonist. But I mouthed wicked threats at them. (More on shamans in a moment.)

Then it was time for my second public event of the day, my "workshop." I wasn't sure what to workshop, so I decided to simply tell them of my own experience and answer questions. It was across the campus, in a lecture hall, and I was astounded to see SRO again. What's up, Tucson? Clearly, Teresita was punishing Cinderella for mocking me by making her sit on the floor. It was a wonderful hour with very sweet, kind people. I loved it to death. I think we shared a lot of valuable stuff. It's hard to remember, because to speak to so many people, you have to fire up the reactor. You have to jam in the dilithium crystals and attain warp drive. It fries the circuits. However, afterward, I had my third signing of the day. It was a nice line, not as giant as the first, not as sparse as the second. But big-time blessings showered down.

Representatives of my beloved Yaqui tribe came. they brought me cool presents. Note to people standing in autograph lines: Luis likes swag. They brought me Yaqui tribal flag pins for my jackets. Cool! It's like a secret code. We took senior-prom snaphsots all hugs and grins. And then a handsome young agent of the US Border Patrol appeared. How's that for a day, Yaqui bessings AND Border Patrol blessings! But about that shaman.

The man was silent. White haired. Dark faced. Hawklike, if a hawk could almost grin. He stepped up and gripped my hand and wrist and stared in my face. Then he stepped back and made the sign of the cross over me and walked away. Somebody next to me muttered, "Holy shit."

Off to the author's dinner/beer blast. We sat with Kathleen Alcala. I ate fish tacos. We found our beloved Charger, its mouth hideously dripping with oil from the Mini Cooper it had eaten, and we made it back to our room to pass out again from exhaustion.

In the morning, quail were rampaging all over the grounds. It was all delight. All joy. We discovered Jamie Ford and Masha Hamilton in the green room. It was a Twitter-pal Tweet-up. I had a third appearance and a fourth signing ahead. We walked all together and found Darth Vader, so we took our stoopid writer pix like kids at Disneyland. How delightful it is when you hook up with writers who can simply be joyous and free and not wrestling for prestige or position. Wish we'd had Janis Ian in there too! Well, the next event was also really good. Probably 300 folks again. Nice signing line. More swag. A stunning Yaqui hummingbird pin to go w my tribal flag. We met "Tucson Cowgirl," another Twitter pal, and Mary Beth Dawson, one of my healer-world friends from Hummingbird days--she lived on Rancho Teresita. Could it have been better? I don't know how.

Oh, wait--I do know. Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush was ready, and Bobby Byrd was selling it like Chocolate-Covered Dodge Chargers. My li'l exquisite graphic novel out early for its Tucson debut. A small way to pay back the love. Thank you, Christopher Cardinale for such beautiful artwork.

Had to drive around in the Charger for a while, so we snuck out and I floored it on out to East Saguaro, where I used to hike w javelinas, coyotes and a white ghostly roadrunner as I was wrestling with Hummingbird. Just...driving. No music. Window open. My wife and me, free upon the land. There was a party ahead, and a hang with dear friends, and a ghastly five a.m. wake up for our flight back. But the desert was all green and red and purple and gray and yellow and orange all arund us. The mountains were saffron and mauve. And the snow was dabbed on them as if a great painter had stepped down from heaven and, against all odds, laid grace on the land.

Love to you,

My First Book

2010-03-11T15:28:00.002-06:00

On Facebook, an old friend from high school posted this scan of I See the Wind, the Blind Man Cried, my first "book."Like all young writers (and cartoonists) I wanted to be published. I didn't know how to be published. All I knew was I had piles of cool stuff I wanted to see in print. My friend Frank and I got the miscreants in the industrial off-set printing class to steal plates for us and Frank shot the plates for me. Then, using "borrowed" Clairemont High School paper, the dope fiends printed my book section by section after school. In a further commando raid, we requisitioned their industrial stapler and put it all together. The cover art reflects that phase when I was trying to learn how to draw with pencils and fancied myself Salvador Dali, Jr.

Thought you'd enjoy this.

The Discipline of Joy

2010-03-10T12:08:00.002-06:00

Joy's a choice. Joy's a discipline. Misery's easy. Sometimes, you don't feel like you can handle the burden of joy, so you slouch and frump and sigh and feel exhausted. Joy can be a real pain, like doing elevated push-ups on your TRX system in the basement. Right now, the joy doesn't want to ignite. I'm feeling the pressure of writing against the schedule of outside things. Inside vs. outside. I have to rush back to school today--my writing day--to sit in a PhD oral defense. Tomorrow, I have to teach, though I can get in some writing after. But Friday, I rush away to Tucson Festival of Books. Love Tucson, love my friends there, love the festival, and I love fancy hotel weekends with Cinderella. But...Teresita...Tomas...deadlines...work. I can't get it done. So my decision today is to embrace the discipline of Joy. Capital J. Because I'm feeling a li'l beat.

Wait. I could just Kerouac that and make it Beat. Make beatness into Beatitudes.

Perhaps you have seen the Lakota thought that you need to arise and thank the day; then give thanks for the breakfast; then give thanks for life; then give thanks for work and all things, and if you can't give thanks, then you can own your own misery. Ha ha. Yeah, bouwee!

What has been, as warned by all my friends, a total time-suck, has been this new foray into Facebook. But what a joyous thing it has been. I like it. I am too dense about computers to get much out of it, which is a good thing. But the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful Cinderella runs all the clicks and whizzbangs for me. Keep dropping me messages over there! I am having a great time answering you.

And I have really enjoyed the continuing craft discussion here. I have gotten emails, comments, twitters and messages on fb about the thoughts I post about writing. I like it. I will keep that up as long as you like it, too. If you have questions, get 'em to me by whatever means you like, and I'll try to answer here.

You might notice the website changing. Yes, we are redesigning it. A new phase is upon us, what with Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush coming out, followed by the paperback of Into the Beautiful North. I also hope to submit Hummingbird's Daughter II (whatever we call it) by summer. And the UK edition of ITBN will be out just as we set foot in London in July. Big cool stuff.

You know, when you're a poor boy in San Diego or Tijuana, listening to scratchy records all night because you can't sleep, and you're thinking about some big scary future that you don't think will happen, and your little 69 cent drug store notebook is filling up with absurd meditations on the heavy wowness of the universe, you don't know. You don't imagine. But you hope. If you're lucky, you get kissed a little. All right, you get kissed a lot. But you would trade all those kisses to get any sense of hope at all that this dream will come true.

Yo, I kept the kisses. What--am I stupid? But look at what happened. On the days when Joy hides, I sit back and look. I get to do the thing I love. I try, as Rumi suggested, to be the thing I love. That I get love back from you is...well. It's simply too much to comment on here.

I have conversed with readers from Australia, Bahrain, Chile, China, England, France, Germany, Holland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, Siberia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates. WHAT? Really? Oh, Luis--I wish I could go back in time and let you know that someone would be listening. But you were too busy fretting and working, and that work made me grow up...in fits and starts...your scared poverty nights made these days. So, thanks, son.

And thank you, mis amigos. See you in Tucson. See you in my dreams. Or, um, on Facebook.

XXX, L

Rainy Sunday--It's Raining Words

2010-03-07T17:59:00.002-06:00

I love the rain. I can watch it and listen to it forever. My first wife never believed me when I said that. She thought I was a poser, trying to look sensitive. Maybe she didn't notice me watching wrestling. I wasn't posing--I grew up in San Diego and Tijuana. Rain? To quote one of my relatives: "Are jou joking me?" We didn't have a lot of rain. Now, I can just drive around and watch it fill gutters. Last year, when we had floods looming, my little girl and I had demented catastrophe drives so we could watch the river leap its banks & make a waterfall into the local rock quarry.

Today, it rained. It rained, and I worked on polishing Hummingbird's Daughter's sequel all day. I have 200 killer pages. Killer. I didn't think I could get there again. Well, to tell you the truth, I didn't have to get THERE. All you shamans will know what I mean. I can't take it anymore--the ghosts and the visions and the strange dreams and the apparitions. But this book is about Teresita grown up and in the US. I can get to that stuff.

It's funny--the paperback of Into the Beautiful North is about the be released (June). And I have the new graphic novel coming in May. (Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush, artwork by Christopher Cardinale.) I have a lot of miles to travel, and I hope I'll see some of you out there. We'll post the whole schedule here when it's ready.

It begins next week, though, in Tucson. Tucson Festival of Books. See you there!

Funny, anyway, because my books seem to inspire such divergent responses. When I got a big award for The Devil's Highway, a generous mentor told me that Across the Wire was the better book--regardless of my award and my nomination for a Pulitzer. It was, in fact, one of the great books of the century. I asked, "Where were you when I needed you?" So now, the split decision on Beautful North seems to be either: A) hilarious, moving, I loved the characters, or B) well, it's no Hummingbird's Daughter. (Honestly? The Hummingbird's Daughter is no Hummingbird's Daughter--if you could see the book I was trying to achieve...sigh.)

But here's the thing, if you're me. You will write what you need to write. When you need to write it. And you'll trust your readers to trust you. We are, after all, in this together.

I love Beautful North, and of course I appreciate the many many people who write to me about it. I am amused by reviewers who feel that the Mexican portions of the book have "too much Spanish." (I gave them a Twitter hash-tag: #RUStupid?) I don't think it's perfect, and I don't think it's in any way Hummingbird Part 7. Those of you who know me know that it is Hummingbird that is the anomaly. That li'l monster is sui generis, it's a phenom unto itself, and twenty years of suffering, work, travel, fear, dread, exultation, miracles, shock, love, divorce, tears and hunger dictate that it stands alone. Most of my other fiction, though, is picaresque and shaggy-dog in nature. In Search of Snow, Six Kinds of Sky, ITBN, Mr. Mendoza--even, egad--large swathes of Hummingbird. (My editor gave me a ew rule: only one fart scene per book. Damn.)

Here's the deal, though, on the process, since I've been talking about process lately. Into the Beautiful North taught me how to write Hummingbird's Daughter II. I use each story or book to take me higher. I wanna take you higher. Baby baby baby light your fire. I am Sly and the Family Urrea. Boom shaka-laka-laka. (Book shaka-laka-laka?) I am moving through the degrees of my black belt training.

How do Teresita and Tomas become immigrants in the USA? Nayeli, Tacho, Chava Chavarin and Atomiko taught me how. If you see beyond the 2 funny 4 my own good trappings of the adventure, I don't think it's shallow. And, to tell you the truth, after Hummingbird and Devil's H, I could use a laugh. So I wrote it so I could laugh out loud every day.

For people doing term papers, the book is about interpersonal borders (political, geographical, cultural, sexual, age-related, language-related, economic, and aesthetic). The theme of pan-cultural inter-penetration is all through the book. It's also, and here comes the Teresita angle, about grace. About the sacredness of the quotidian day. And it's a love-song to Mexico and the US.

Frankly, I thought that the garbage dump scenes would get me a lot of Steinbeck citations in reviews, and I was happy when they came.

So. It's raining, and the Oscars are on. I feel so good right now. Tired. Burned out a little. facing 400 more pp of the big book. But I am certain, finally, I can get through it with fire in my back pocket.

Lord, I'm shining.

Can't wait for my comic, and can't wait for my paperback. Nayeli will be a movie--just watch. I am proud of her and wish her well. And I thank those of you who keep suggesting more books about her.

Oh, if you get the chance, check out the new PHOENIX NOIR anthology. I have a story in it called "Amapola." It was nominated by the Crime Writers of America for an Edgar Award. Best Short Story. BOOM-shaka-laka.

We're having tacos tonight.

I Am Atomiko,
Luigi

Karla's Question

2010-03-04T18:29:00.004-06:00

Karla, who just read Into the Beautiful North in school, asked some good questions about the book. I thought they were really sharp, and I wanted to answer them here. Thanks for this, Karla--it adds to the general conversation I have with readers and fellowwriters all the time. You are the kind of reader I hope for. And your questions are good.

Like why do some people in class find the end of the book unfinished? I say this: because they are not paying attention. It is a common thing for students to think a story is left hanging or is not finished because they need a wrapped-up "neat" ending. The princess marries the prince. They all lived happily ever after. Life's not like that. Neither is literature. What you're after in a piece of fiction is a sense of a cpompleted narrative pattern. Think of a Persian rug. You don't study the rug; it's just there under your feet. But the pattern is complete. If the pattern weren't complete, you would feel uneasy or even dizzy. So, imagine if Nayeli started down the street to her father's house and the book ended. THAT is incomplete. What does happen (don't want to spoil those who have not read it yet), is the completion of the narrative pattern: she has an answer, and it is what it is. She has to grow up. She has to take her place now as an adult. This is the traditional and mythic story of the warrior on a quest. It just happens to be a young woman. People want pink hearts and frou-frou snuggles for girls, but that short-changes and insults the pain, yearning, hope and sorrow of real people. That ain't Art. I could have Nayeli find a rich boyfriend, win the lottery, save a drowning kitten, and become President of Mexico. But...no.

Now, the sense of suspension at the end was not an error. But the book is in no way unfinished. It reflects the unfinished business in all their lives, and on the border. Now what some of your pals may be responding to is the sense that the ending is abrupt. That may well be. A couple of critics felt that was so, yet later wrote me personal letters saying what they really wanted was another book. A series? Maybe. I can tell you that there was a longer, much more involved ending. But both my editor and I felt that it violated the integrity of Nayeli to give readers false and cheesy resolutions. You have to look at her as a person, and see that the gesture she makes is dignified, hard, and devastating. People who cry at this ending are having true feelings rather than goosed up get-your-hankies romance movie tears. I mean, I could have had ET in there, and he could have died, but Nayeli's love could have re-ignited his love-light and he could have then come back to life. Or I could have had a toruble-making puppy die. Then we could have called the waaaa-mbulance and cried a lot. Honestly, I wish I had because I would have sold a lot more copies. But at the end of the day, I have to live with myself and not be ashamed of the words I write.

Even as it is,some people say the book is a sell-out and a let-down. But I will always write what I need to write the way it needs to be written. It's been a weird feature of my career that every book I do, someone points out thast it was "all right" but certainly not as good as the book that came before! Ha ha! I love this. This means that Beautiful North will soon be much better than the next book I ahve coming out!

I don't know what to say about Yolo and Matt. This comes up often when I teach Fiction. They want to know what happened to Garp after the book ended, or what happened to Tarzan or the Little House on the Prairie girls. I feel like a real creep saying this to readers, but, um, Yolo and Matt don't exist. So, what happens to Yolo and Matt on the page IS what happens to Yolo and Matt. If we are looking at the shifting, uncertain relationship between immigant and host nation, between citizens of different countries, between friends and lovers, between Mexican and American, male and female, then Matt and Yolo are exactly what is happening in the book. They are trying to work out the relationship. Again, those wanting a pat answer are simply lazy readers. Because literautre is not made to answer your questions--it is there to post the question. The books with lists of answers in the back are text books, and you look back there to study for a quiz. Oddly, there would be no question in this case without the story being there first. See what I mean? It's ABOUT these questions. The border isn't easy to solve. Thus, the novel. (And, by the way, maybe the big issue is not Matt and Yolo, but what happens with Matt and his struggle with God and religion?)

Finally, why Atomiko at the end? because when we hear "I am Atomiko," it means a couple of things: 1. I have solved the plot point of whether he will follow or not (see The Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven), 2. he's my favorite character and, dang it, I wanted to see him again, and 3. THE BAD GUYS ARE ABOUT TO GET THEIR ASSES WHIPPED.

Yeah! If you're tuned in to a book, then you and the writer have made a deal between the two of you and you pick up clues and "get" whole other stories. We used to call this "The Indirect Means of Telling a Story" at Harvard. A story is told on one level--the way your pals might be reading it. But it is also implied, echoed, hinted and partially co-written by the reader, as you are clearly reading it. It's like a friend who can look at you in a crowd and cock an eyebrow and you somehow know this means, "Hey, remember that creeper that bothered us at the dance last year? Well this idiot in the Izod shirt reminds me so much of him!" And you get it.

You and I, in other words, work in a partnership. It is not my job to spoon-feed TV watchers easy solutions, but to set off shadows, laughs, fear, echoes, prayers and colors in your mind. We're dancing. The fact that they have questions is good for me. It means I am doing my work.

The answers in the book, by the way, are about humanity, friendship, love. Stuff like that.

Hope this answered your excellent questions. Thank you for reading my book! You rock.

love, L

Today's Meditation

2010-03-04T15:41:00.003-06:00

Rosario in Guatemala, Dec. 2009

Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars;

and they pass by themselves without wondering.
-- St. Augustine

Ten Years After (OK, really nine ...)

2010-03-02T10:12:00.005-06:00

Been blogging here for a long time. Realized the other day that we started this blog nine years ago in February. Think I'm one of the first authors who was blogging regularly (and kept at it).
Thought it would be fun to take a look back at the very first blog. Anybody else been posting this long??? Give us a look at your first!

XOXO
L

2/13/2001
Provence Dispatch

Greetings from the South of France...okay, so I'm not in France. I'm in
frozen graysnow Chicago. But I'm thinking of the South of France. I'm
thinking about the window of our bedroom at the Auberge des Seguins (the
drawing above) and the overgrown pathways up the Roman cliffs above Buoux.
The scattered colors and chaos of the Saturday country market in Apt. The
mad Mediterranean in its shades of green and turquoise, the topless bathers of
Marseilles, and the sly octopi in the bayside crates of the fishermen,
reaching out through the slats and hissing, "Hey, Mon Ami! Let me out of
here!"

I remember the strange illuminated castlements on hilltops of the
Luberon--ancient towns and villes lit up in the dark, violet, blue, orange,
gold, red, seeming to drift above the woods and the plains like glowing
motherships, each small kingdom shining its own color. Gorde, like some hive
of angels designed by M.C. Escher, and Avignon, with its wonderful ice cream
cones and its palaces, its old walls and its hippies washing their underpants
in the ancient fountains.

After working on a novel for 20 years or so, I found a bedroom I couldn't
imagine on my own waiting for me in France. If the book is ever published,
you'll find a small Mexican room transported to Sonora from Provence, and the
low roof beams, you can rest assured, made resounding contact with my head on
several occasions. My Cinderella and I go back there often in our dreams,
and we eat the little blue quail eggs and hop the bullet train to Paris.
If this revamped website had been up and running then, I probably would
have written you a dispatch of our adventures.

But we did bring back a baby. Our madwoman Rosario, "La Chayo," now one
year old and bellowing her outrage over some slight or other in the living
room as I type this in the kitchen.
And now I'm going to go listen to Black Sabbath's first album. ("Ohhhh
nooooo, Please God Help Me!!!!!") I might be regressing.

Ever Yrs.,

Facebook.

2010-02-28T18:56:00.002-06:00

Yeah, we took the plunge. Well, Cinderella took the plunge while I was upstairs writing Hummingbird's Daughter II. So we have a Facebook. Go over and say hi. Join up! (Is that how it works?) I'll see you there, or here, or on Twitter, or on GoodReads. Wow. I still wish we could send post-cards to each other.

Love 4ever,
L

Neil Gaiman Saves The Day

2010-02-25T15:49:00.005-06:00

OK, famous (and infamous) writers have been in our lives and in and out of our house forever. Our kids eye-roll as they pack up their sleeping bags and move into the basement or sit through yet another reading or author dinner. They are unfailingly polite and always feign great interest in these grownups.

But this week, Neil Gaiman came to town. Now we don't know Neil Gaiman. And 10-year-old Chayo was not at all happy about that. Thanks to Coraline and The Graveyard Book and his kid picture books, she is a huge fan. (So's Eric for the record, but for other reasons and he's at college so he's not part of this story). "Why don't you know him?" Chayo demanded. "He's an author, you're an author. Finally, here's somebody I really want to meet. He's my Author Crush!"

Demoralized, we "cursed" Neil Gaiman on Twitter and bemoaned the fall from grace of Daddy The Amazing.

Neil saw our posting and wrote immediately. Said he loved the Mexico poem (below). And he invited us to come to his reading and he'd say hello to Chayo backstage. Redemption!!

We went to see him last night as part of Naperville Reads and escorted our beaming daughter (who spritzed herself with perfume in the car) backstage to meet her Author Crush.

Neil Gaiman was warm and friendly and completely charmed the little kid in our house. He asked her what he should read and she responded (with little hearts in her eyes), "Anything would be good." He posed for a picture with her and, as we left, swept her up and swung her in the air.

She hasn't come down yet.

This morning at the bus stop, she was mulling over the authors she's met and figuring out her favorites. "OK," she said. "I LOVE Colum McCann. But he's more my friend because we hung out and everything. And I don't think I'll read his books anytime soon. But Neil Gaiman ... well,I think he's my real Author Crush. He's amazing."

Thanks, Neil, for making a 10-year-old girl so happy. And for helping her Daddy stay cool in her eyes.

When Your Heart is Weak

2010-02-24T13:03:00.002-06:00

We are still frozen, but Spring is near. I am stirring to life. Hummingbird's Daughter sequel is opening like one of the forsythia buds out there under the ice. The first galley of Mr. Mendoza's paintbrush, my killer graphic novel with Cristopher Cardinale came this week. I have three big anthology appearances happening. Verily, my heart feels weak and old and tired, but there is a stirring of life in spite of my blues. How are things in your house? You all right? Here's a thought for us both:

"Sorrow, accumulating in one's heart, may one fine day burst into flames like a haystack, and everything will burn away in the fire of extraordinary joy."
--Mikhail Prishvin

Still, in this white/gray whispering beauty, we wait....

Writing Rules

2010-02-19T16:37:00.002-06:00

No, These aren't The Rules of Writing, this is an exultation, dude: Writing Totally Rules. Like that. Just got back from one of those crazy-fast trips. Went to Phoenix. I was gone from the house well before dawn, in AZ by lunch time. Gave a talk to 400 of my bestest new friends. Signed a bunch of autographs and got a bunch of hugs and heard confession from six or seven sinners and posed for the requisite Chicana prom date snapshots. All because I thought it would be really cool, once upon a time, in my teens, to write 977 bad poems about the wonders of my sweetie, Colette. Girl taught me to write! Taught me to kiss, actually. But THAT taught me to write!

I hope some of my new pals from Maricopa are checking this. Big love, amigos! I am starting to rev up the motors for the Return of The Perpetual Book Tour. (Can you hear the reverb?) I've been staying put since our Central American jungle adventure. But I'm heading out again. Watch out. Back to AZ soon for the Tucson Festival of the Book. To TX, to CT. Paperback book tour is kicking off soon. And some cool event in England.

Thank you, as ever, for reading my work. I'll be looking for you out there.

Here's a little bit of how I feel about all of it:

I want to give myself
utterly
as this maple
that burned and burned
for three days without stinting
and then in two more
dropped off every leaf....

--Jane Hirshfield

Ever Yrs.,
L

Some Good Things Between Snow Storms

2010-02-15T17:12:00.002-06:00

A while ago, I got an e-mail from a program for young incarecerated girls in San Diego. I was excited to roganize a great heist with my publicists at Little, Brown, and we procured a crate of copies of INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH for the girls. They wrote me thank-you notes that got here this week. Man. It really reminds you why you write. Not Cadillacs, not big checks, not even awards. But simple human communication. To think that a book can bring some hope, laughter or even tears to a teenage girl in trouble makes me so happy.

Here, it's all flu and sinus infections. Kind of scary because I have to fly to AZ on Wednesday, and right now, it feels like my whole head will explode when the plane takes off. Like that scene from SCANNERS. What was that? That was author Luis Urrea's sinus cavity reacting to the cabin pressure! Wow, what a shame. Pass the mop.

Still, we had a good Valentine's Day. I got Cinderella an iPod Nano. Red. See, like some John Hughes movie, I used to make her mix tapes when we first met. How can you live and love without a mix tape? So the plot--slowed somewhat by the exploding sinus--is to load all the songs that were on these tapes on the Pod. And make playlists for each tape, so she can listen to them whenever she pleases. Cool, huh?

Hey--it worked. We're coming up on 13 years this June! Go, Tom Petty! Go, Love & Rockets! Go, Neruda! Go, Beau Jocque! Go, Caifanes!

I have been working hard, by the way, on Hummingbird's Daughter II. It's 1/3 done. Very difficult. But happening.

See you in Arizona.

L

Hummingbird Review II

2010-02-05T14:40:00.001-06:00

Here's their website. Check it!
www.hummingbirdreview.com

Writing

2010-02-05T11:55:00.002-06:00

I'm writing. Cinderella reminds me that writing time is sacred time. I fear taking myself that seriously, but I need to take the process that seriously. It's crazy how much time one loses in teaching, planning workshops, attending to the needs of workshoppers, maintaining websites and answering mail, fielding grumbles whines cries love notes critiques complaints howls exploratory prods, editing, reviewing, writing blurbs, writing/answering incessant requests for letters of recommendation even from people one has met at a meeting once three years ago. Wow! Or, as they say in Mexico City, GUAU. I can see why people vanish to a cabin in Vermont. Gotta write. I forget to write in dealing with all the peripheral stuff. Must remember it's peripheral! Just: writing. Not career. Writing careers suck. Writing is the best job in the world, even if it's hard sometimes. Writing is play. Writing is lunch. Writing is a day in the woods. Sometimes, writing is the $%#@&*! treadmill. But this other stuff is a slow cascade of tapioca, covering the day like diabetic lava. Sweet, but it'll kill ya! So, back to work! Trying to make some good words for you to read!

A parting thought for today:

"When asked what I write about, I like to reply that 'about' is the wrong word, it suggests the wrong relationship. I prefer to say 'from' or 'toward' or occasionally 'through.'" --Kathleen Jamie

OK, y'all--I'm writing through. Thinking of you, even if I won't open my window when the pebbles hit the glass.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, Luigi

The Hummingbird Review

2010-02-04T10:32:00.003-06:00

In my many secret lives, I do all kinds of sneaky things. One of those things is to maintain a hidden community/workshop of writers and artists. Out of this working group, a new lit journal has sprung. I am very excited about it, and I hope you will check it out.

It is THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW. Yeah, I'm in there. It's published by Charlie Redner and edited by warriors from the group. You can see info online at hummingbirdreview.blogspot.com. But the good news is that the electronic journal has gone into print. Yes. I like to hold an object in my hand. And now it's here.

You can get it via amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, openbooks.com. It's $10 an issue, but a little (humming)bird told me Barnes & Noble has it for $9.

They did good work--I hope you can support them. And writers/poets/artists/photographers--submit to The Hummingbird!

A Poem You Haven't Read Yet

2010-01-31T15:05:00.002-06:00

My Fishtap colleague, the poet Frank X. Walker, edited a fine anthology a few years back called AMERICA! WHAT'S MY NAME? Now that I'm secretly cobbling my newxt poetry books together while working on Hummingbird II, I found this one. And I really liked it. I thought you might like it too. All right, I admit it--I am writing this blog to escape working on Hummingbird II. Yes, it's just like doing social studies homework.

This poem is dreamilke and mysterious, and was inspired by letter writers I saw in the old Mexican villages where nobody knew how to write. I don't know what the coins are at the end. Grace? The money they paid for the letter to be written? Or their reward? I like it that the poem did not tell me, and that I did not tell the poem.

#

There is A Town in Mexico

There is a town in Mexico
where no one ever dies, and the few
who have died did it elsewhere, then
pass through the town square
on their way to the fruit market where
hibiscus flowers bleed red nectar
into tea, mangos are free,
where alamos and olmos trees
are whitewashed halfway up
the trunk, and those few dead
our world has coughed up stop
by a bench where my grandfather
sits at a wrought iron table and
a black Olivetti and a stack
of onionskin bond. "Name,"
he says as he rolls the sheet
into the hungry machine.
And those few dead who wander
in past sugar cane, agaves
spiked dusty jade, snapping turtles
in the spring, the burro's fence,
scratch their heads, unable
to remember their names. "Any
name will do," my grandfather
tells them: for instance, he
calls himself Hummingbird.
He calls John the Baptist
Juanito, and if Emiliano
Zapata ever came down from the hills,
He'd get a new name too. The dead
call themselves Honeysuckle, Xochitl,
Midnight Wind, Coyote.
My grandfather types. Once
they've signed the page,
they scoop a cool cupful of water
from the tiled foutain, shade
their eyes for a minute, and stare
at all those gold shining coins.

15 Things I Have Learned From My Trainer

2010-01-29T13:09:00.002-06:00

In my faux Navy SEAL TRX torture by our trainer the fabulous Nicki Anderson, I have learned these odd things. About writing. Believe it or not. I call Nicki "The Body Editor." When I open my writing institute, I am going to have her there. I thought these few items about physical training apply handily to the practice of writing.

1. This is a shame-free zone.
2. If you are surrendering to shame, you will not make progess.
3. It is better to do a little than to do nothing.
4. It is better to do a little, right, than to do a lot wrong.
5. What you are lifting is not weight, it is your fear.
6. What you hate to do the most is what you need to work on the most.
7. When your form slips, it is better to stop than to forge on badly.
8. When you get tired, your form slips--take a break.
9. There are two kinds of pain: bad pain and healthy pain. Feeling the burn is good. You need to know when you feel wrong, when the pain feels wrong.
10. Be consistent, but never be punishing.
11. Eat chocolate, just don't eat as much chocolate. (OK, I threw that in to make myself happy!)
12. Live Brightly. (Eat bright colors, eat brown and green, but avoid beige, avoid blanched white...but I can see that in every aspect of daily life.)
13. You are not allowed to hurt yourself.
14. Seek help when you need it: all questions are correct; don't guess when it matters.
15. Dance!

May these silly notes help you when you face that blank, daunting page/screen. I tell you, sometimes the pen is the heaviest set of weights I have ever picked up.

P.S. You can find out more about Nicki -- recently named one of the top trainers in Chicago -- at www.nickianderson.com. She's got a new book out that is really worth your time.

Mon Jour Noir

2010-01-19T12:40:00.002-06:00

Why, I couldn't have been more surprised. Folks who know me will know that I am a mystery/detective fanatic, and will rush to a new mystery book in a blinding dash. I have always said I would write mysteries if I had that talent or the smarts. Well, the editors of the Noir series from Akashic Books suggested I write a story for their PHOENIX NOIR book. "I can't," I said. "You can," the editor said. "I don't know how," I said. "Try," he said. (This sounds supiciously like sessions with a personal trainer, when she devises some new horror having to do with being suspended by straps and maneuvering your own body weight into wicked and painful positions for 150 reps. "You can," she says, as blood shoots out of your ears.)

OK, so I wrote this story, "Amapola." They accepted it. I was freaked out to be in a book with Lee Child and Don Winslow and other dark kings and queens of crime. All I'd hoped to do was not embarrass myself too much.

I got up this morning to come to work, and Cinderella said, "Guess who got nominated for an Edgar Award today." Thinking it was yet another pal of mine I could feel jealous of--damn you, David Corbett!--I mumbled, "Who?" as I rummaged around for my hi-fiber lo-cal colon blaster bread for some omega-3 peanut buttered toast. My bride said, "You."

WHAT????

The Edgar! Only the coolest award ever. Best mystery story. Are you KIDDING? I honestly don't care if I win or not; being nominated for an Edgar makes me dizzy with joy.

That's what I get for thinking I can't do something.

#

Which led to the sadder news of the day: Robert B. Parker died.

I have to weigh this. After all, it was Mr. Parker who made me a crime/hard-boiled/detective/mystery fan in the first place. The general plan of life--that things whipsaw so wildly that you stay in a constant state of spiritual/mental whiplash--smacked me right in my kitchen this morning.

I had read John D. MacDonald. The cheapo used paperback store behind Von's market had all the Travis McGee books, and my mom had a crush on that beach bum, so I read her double-used MacDonalds. I had read Chandler. But when the miraculous day came when I had to move from San Diego to Boston, I didn't know anything about Boston. So I went to the library and asked the librarians if he could recommend anything I could read to prepare for this change of life. And he said, "Are you looking for Rachel Wallace?" I said something sharp, like, "Whut?"

He took me to the mysrtery shelves and pulled down Parker's LOOKING FOR RACHEL WALLACE (duh...I tried to look like I Knew That!) and EARLY AUTUMN. "Read these," he said, with real love. "It'll tell you what you need to know."

Spenser! The world's coolest detective! I went crazy for these books. I inhaled them, then rushed back and scarfed up all the others I could find. I was hooked.

Now, as fate would have it, I'd been hired to teach Expos at Harvard. Yeah. Can you believe it? I must have been a lot smarter then than I am now. I thought it would be piquant, yet apropos, to force these top-drawer Biffs and Buffys to read hard-boiled detective books! Well, I was so proud of myself that I wrote Parker a letter and said, "They expect to be reading Dickens!" He, to my undying shock, wrote back and said, "Dickens who?" Then he suggested he come over and speak to the students.

On the anointed day, I was out on the street in front of the building waiting for him to come. I was wearing white sneakers, blue jeans, and a Harris tweed jacket. Parker came ambling along wearing, yeah baby, white sneaks, blue jeans and a Harris tweed jacket. He stopped, looked me up and down, and said, "I love your fashion sense." I cracked wise in a Spenserian mood and said, "We maintain a dress code at harvard." Haw haw.

Mr. Parker spent hours with the students and their pals and other fans who had snuck in. It was very generous and hilarious good fun. Later, he signed my stack of hardcovers, and even books for my mom. When I told him, "I've read all your books," he corrected me. "Don't tell a writer that," he said. "What we wanna hear is, 'I've BOUGHT all your books.'" I said, "I've bought all your books." He smiled. "That's what I wanna hear!"

He also taught me that, when faced with a stack of books, and he was in the position by then to be faced with stack after stack of books at signings, he couldn't think of anything witty to say after about 100 books. So he scribbled something vaguely round and letter-like that looked like well-wishes. Then he signed his name. So I have a stack of Spenser books that look like they might say Enjoy! or Huzzah! or Tally Ho! in vaguely Sumerian script.

What a strange day. That one and this one. Thanks, Mr. Parker, for the joy of reading all those amazing hard boiled books. And thanks for putting a little seed in my mind that got me this amazing nomination.

I'm still working on Hummingbird's Daughter II, and believe it or not, there are detectives in one section.

XXX, L

Count 'Em

2009-12-23T11:53:00.003-06:00

Count your blessings, as the old aunties like to say. Every day can feel like church to me at any second, so I am keeping a running blessings-tally at all times. Lest I forget that 18,000 children a day starve to death. Lest I forget that I have a roof, a floor, a bed, a stove and TV. Lest I forget that I can afford to give good food to dogs and cats. Lest I forget that no death squads are coming for me or my family, that no-one is coming to torture us. Lest I forget the snow is pretty, a hassle when I want to fly out or wneh I have to shovel, but doesn't mean I will lose fingers or toes...or will freeze to death on a Chicago corner.

I made you a promise that I would kick off the Save the World Tour at the end of this bad year, looking toward 2010. We have been lucky so far in our efforts. That stuff is below, a couple of postings back. You can check it if you want. But we have been able to continue using my small career to goose charity events. That's good. We were able to send Pastor Von (Across the Wire, By the Lake of Sleeping Children) a couple of g's. Today, I'll surprise Negra from those same books with unexpected Christmas $.

Von tells me that in 50 years on the border, the missionaries have not felt fear...until now. Poverty, despeair, madness is in the eyes. The Big Fear that grips Juarez today is spreading like a toxic spill, puddling in gutters and canyons, flooding valleys, seeking the low points as it drools across the landscape.

Read all about it! http://pastorvon.blogspot.com/

Wanna help? Well, Von has a website, you can go look and read and think about it. I'd say, $5 is better than $0. Maybe you can help out. www.spectrumministries.com. They have good pictures there.

We went to Fedd My Starving Children again. I'm happy to say it's a major Naperville desitnation. People may not always have the extra $5 to give, but they have arms and hands and feet. They can pack food. This time, we managed to pack 19,000+ meals. Last time, it was 23,500+.

fmsc.com.

Fishtrap is running out of money, too. fishtrap.org.

What do we save? Kids? Arts? Animals? Trees? Water? Darfur? The homeless? The economy? The environment?

Rather than getting overwhelmed, I am thinking about the possibilities here. If My small family, with nour scant resources (yes, OK, I'm doing great--but not compared to the Stephen Kings of the world, or the MacArthur genius-grant winners, or the movie stars), but if we can sit back at the end of our hardest, saddest year and tally up the many substantial changes for the good we have been able to wring out of it...why, the possibilities are endless.

Even a good review placed at the right time, in the right place, can help a writer's career path. A good class, taught well, can reach a sorrowful student and open a small window of light. A thoughtful gift at a difficult moment might offer hope, and who knows what the next day might bring. There was a time, not that long ago, when I was at the end...nothing. Nothing at all. At the end of my rope? Well, I was planning to hang myself, so yeah. Funny how cliches make sense when you get to their roots.

But I didn't. Wanted to see what would happen. The cynic in me wanted to see how bad it could get. It's like working out: the trainer tells you this one is going to hurt, and you laugh, because you can't believe life gets this sucky, but you want to see if you can take it. Look what happened! Everything happened, that's what.

I just showed up and went to work.

That's my plan. It's foolish. It's naive. But I say: dare to be naive. dare to be ridiculous. Show up, go to work, think about all the small clues, and Save the World. One tiny drip-drop at a time.

When I told Von I was worried about publishing Across the Wire because it might make unwelcome waves for him, he said: "Never be satisfied with ripples."

We're goin' on vacation now. I'll tell you how we figure out the Sacred Lift-Offs while on a cruise. Ain't a saint 24/7--ain't even a saint once a week. Just a servant. Might drink some of that demon rum.

"Are you hearing me like I'm hearing you?
I'm seeing waves breaking forms on my horizon,
Yeah, I'm shining.
I'm seeing waves breaking forms on my horizon,
Lord, I'm shining." --The Chemical Brothers

Here's to 2010. Give thanks. Put out your hands. I'm reaching for you now.

Shining,
L

2009

2009-12-17T14:42:00.002-06:00

Wow, what a year. Bad deaths, much travel, our first piano, INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH published, the quiet hybernation of THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY film project, the possibility of an ITBN movie, travel, school, travel, school, Playoboy article, Bread Loaf, new agent, travel. I am grateful, as always, for all of it. Even the bad stuff.

I am so happy I met new friends all over the country; I am so grateful I saw old friends, too. I am sorry I missed people and couldn't find others. We had a big Twitter year! Lots of Tweetup action on book tour. I'm writing, writing, writing. Thinking of all of you this frozen holiday. Enjoying life. The neighborhood turkey now knocks on my front door to get me to come feed it. Somehow, that feels like the muse.

Next year? The Perpetual Book Tour starts its 900th leg; I deliver Hummingbird's Daughter II; the filme of the first volume (allegedly) starts filming; Christopher Cardinale's awesome graphic novel of Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush comes out; the paperback of Into the Beautiful North comes out; I teach for the first time at Squaw Valley. And Megan goes to college. We'll be taking the family to London to celebrate next summer.

Here's what I did all year 9doesn't include much local stuff or radio/TV/newspaper gigs):

January 24-25 ALA Midwinter Convention in Denver
January 29-30 ABA Convention in Salt Lake City
February 1-4 San Diego
February 12 AWP Chicago
March 14-16 Tucson Festival of Books
March 22-26 NYC
April 1-6 Pasadena One Book Celebration
April 15-16 U Kansas
April 25-27 LA Times Book Fest
April 28 Signing Books at Hachette Warehouse Lebanon, IN
May 11 Chicago: Ragdale Foundation Fund Raiser
May 19 Into the Beasutiful North released!
May 19-20 Kankakee, IL
May 21 Anderson's, Naperville
May 22-25 Denver
May 26 Tattered Cover, Denver
May 27 Changing Hands, Phoenix
May 28 Philadelphia
May 29-31 BEA, NYC
May 31 KGB Bar, NYC
May 31 Cinderella's Mother Passes On
June 1 Emergency Flight to Chicago
June 2 Family to Portland
June 2 Powell's, Portland--drive to Seattle for funeral
June 3 University Books, Seattle;Elliott Bay Cancelled
June 4-6 Funeral; kids home, tour continues
June 7 Our Anniversary
June 8 Cindy's Birthday
June 8 Two San Diego Events
June 9 Vroman's, Pasadena
June 10 San Fancisco
June 11 Berkeley
June 12 Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry wedding
June 13 West Coast Live
June 13 Writers With Drinks, SF
June 26 Naperville Book Club
June 27-July 3 Playboy El Paso Assignment
July 10-20 Bread Loaf, VT
July 20-22 Florida
Sep 3 Boulder Book Group (phone)
Sep 15 Los Altos, CA
Sep 16 DePaul U
Sep 21-22 PEN Gala, Washington DC
Sep 24-25 U of Louisville, KY
Sep 29 Boston
Oct 2 Eugene, Ore
Oct 14-16 Fayetteville, AK, U of Arkansas
Oct 19 Columbia College, Chicago
Oct 20 Naperville Book Club
Oct ? Boston
Oct 29-31 Texas Book Fair, Austin
Nov 4 World Stream Radio
Nov 6 Immigration Panel, Chicago
Nov 9-10 Boston/PBS
Nov 14-16 Miami Book Fair
Dec 5 Chicago w. Stephen Elliott
Dec 7 Plainfield, IL, One City One Book
Christmas Week Belize, Guatemala, Mexico

See you around.
XXX, L

The End of the Kirkus Circus

2009-12-12T11:14:00.002-06:00

The allegedly stunning news of the demise of Kirkus, the review-newsletter, has rocked the publishing world. Or not. I can't tell. There have been some sorrowful comments out there, but a surprisingly strong flow of Twitters and posts basically saying, "Screw Kirkus!" You see, Kirkus delighted in slamming authors--except for that damned Stephen Elliott! Everybody loves Stephen Elliott. I think he's bribing people.

Yes, I got slammed by Kirkus a few times. Uh. Most times. One thing publishers are good at is a vengeful trick where they take a mixed, or hostile, review and find the word or two that might sound positive and stick it in among the blurbs on your book cover. A passive-aggressive tai chi move that uses the enemy's own momentum to throw him across the room. My last book, f'r example, got savaged by a rabid reviewer in San Fran--a delightfully unhinged rant that is quite funny, in a John Cleese losing his shite kind of way. Natch, Little,Brown culled some positive-enough words from the paper (admittedly, the bizarre feature had, on the same page, my public evisceration and a column by the books guy saying my book was quite lovely and an editor's pick...go figure). A publisher's karmic revenge, perhaps. Now, every time you see a vaguely non-death-threat blurb from Kirkus on my books, it's a safe bet to assume there are some "in-yo-face, Kirkus!" kung fu flips happening.

Part of the glory, and the crap, of the journal was the fact that all reviews were anonymous. This afforded a veneer of even-handedness to the procedings. Reviewers could say exactly what they thought. It also created the perfect medium for pay-backs, assaults, muggings and revenge plots.

May I tell you a story? I'm not saying it's true, but I'm not saying anything else, either. Imagine you move to a southwestern city. You're researching a life-long project about a Yaqui saint. This city is the center of the Yaqui people in North America. In this city, there is a writer everyone warns you to steer clear of. But you think that's sour grapes, and you meet the fellow and find him blustery and pompous, but good for a laugh. He knows everybody.

Now, imagine that you are a little baffled because your first novel has come ot the year before. You're new to the whole getting reviewed thing. And you revere all those journals, like Kirkus. But your Kirkus review is a bit--well, not negative, but dismissive. That's OK, that's the way the game is played and you take hits like a big boy. However, what the review says about your book is simply wrong. It gives no evidence that the critic actually read the book! But, hey--it's Kirkus. You're green enough to wonder if the wise reviewer saw themes in the meta-text that you missed. because there's NO WAY a critic could go off half-cocked.

So, imagine that you get an invite to the southwestern writer's inner sanctum.

What if this blustery fellow admits to you with great self-satisfied chuckles that he is the reviewer for Kirkus of many "if not all" southhwestern and border-themed books. What if he shows you the stack he has lined up for future reviews. What if he, in generosity, offers to hook you up so you too can crank out little reviews for $40, or was it $25? And what if you see your first book at the bottom of a discard pile, and the reviewer admits to you that he doesn't actually read the books--ho, ho,ho--he looks at the first chapter and the last chapter then "bullshits."

Well, you weigh the possible friendship against the accidental revelation that he didn't read your book and subsequently wrote a completely incorrect review of it based on his utter misunderstanding of the characters. Well, you don't say anything because it sounds like the kind of whining people expect authors to do. And first novels often bomb. This one did. Roll on, baby! Too much southwestern sushi, karaoki, Jackie Chan matinees and coffee clatches to enjoy with this new community to spoil it with kvetching.

However, as many people seem to do, you have a falling-out with this primate. And after that, every book gets a body-slam. Maybe not the Yaqui book. Maybe that one got a positive review, or positive enough to seriously give evidence of someone else doing it. It's funny. It's also irritating because you know who's doing it. I'm certain other writers had suspicions that the impartial judges of the anonymous critico-sphere are well-known to them, but they can't do anything, say anything.

If this were to happen, it would be a trivial bit of business, interesting only to you and your wife and maybe your editor. It affects nothing, really. People who buy and read your books don't read Kirkus. It doesn't affect the war, taxes, the price of gasoline, or the shrinking habitat of snail-darters in desert aquifers.

It's just ritual hazing. And now it's over. On the one hand, I am sorry to see it go. On the other hand, ahhhhhhh....

All you can do is write to you limits, never publish what you're not proud of, and damn he torpedos. Your dog will always love you. Oh, and you can try really hard to read the books you review.

Plainfield goes Into the Beautiful North!

2009-12-07T12:50:00.002-06:00

The communities of Plainfield and Joliet, both just west of Chicago, have chosen Into the Beautiful North as The Great Read this year. It's the first honor for this book and we couldn't be prouder.
Tonight is the kickoff event at the Barnes & Noble in Plainfield. And they'll be debuting a new hot chocolate drink, inspired by me and the book! They held a contest for readers to name the drink, a mixture of white hot chocolate and cinnamon: it'll be interesting to hear the winning suggestion!
They have a huge schedule of events, most of which I'll be attending. If you're in the area, please come on by.

Thanks Plainfield and Joliet! We'll have a great time!

For more information, click here for their website.

Douglas White Update

2009-12-05T15:34:00.001-06:00

My Comrade Simon reminds me that if you're at all interested in Oglala Lakota medicine man, Douglas White (see below), his life or his case, visit the website

www.holymanfilm.com

Good Night, Uncle Douglas

2009-12-01T17:50:00.003-06:00

They are burying Douglas White and Pine Ridge reservation tomorrow. The Oglalas who knew him and loved him gather tonight, in the snow, to remember him and pray him on his way. My brother, Duane, will drive the casket in the back of his pickup tomorrow, as they take him north of Manderson and bry him quietly in the earth he loved.

Doug was one of my teachers during the long torturous process of learning the materials for HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER. He was Duane's medicine man. And, in a way, he became my own.

If you want to know about Doug, read the small essay tucked into the back for the Hummingbir'ds paperback edition. That was Doug's medicine that stunned and shocked the curanderas in Cuernavaca--reaching out long-distance. No, Lakota people are not the same as Yaqui or Mayo people, but Doug taught me much about the matrix of sacredness I was entering to write that book.

I met Doug while visiting Duane at Pine Ridge. (You can find short fiction about all that in SIX KINDS OF SKY; Duane is the basis for Don Her Many Horses in the short story "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses" which you can find on NPR's Selected Shorts show.) I was learning fast that my meeting with medicine people would not be full of cosmic eye-gazing or clanking jewelry and flutes. That was tourist stuff. No, medicine had a far funkiier face. You fans will know this because you know Huila in the novel.

I knew Doug had great power, and had done many astounding things with Duane and other friends on the reservation. The day I met him, he banged up to Duan's house in abeater car. He was wearing jeans and might have had a straw cowboy hat. But he opened up his trunk and pulled out a deer head and offered to sell it to me for $15. Duane and I have laughed about this for years.

We corresponded regularly, and he advised me, and one day he decided he was my uncle and I was his nephew.

An example of his great wakan strength that I was telling Duane on the cell phone as he drove through the snow this afternoon: in Tucson, there was a woman living in the rooms next to mine. She was having serious troubles, Hell-troubles. Bad personal juju bringing down awfulness upon her. And worse, we were living in a scarily haunted house. You can believe that part or not. But things happened there every night and day. Once, I was hanging out with her in the basement of her place (the building was divided into three living units--mine was in the middle). There was no-one in the building but us. And a full tray of plates crashed to the floor above our heads and shattered quite loudly. We ran upstairs. Nothing. Next tood. Nothing. Next door again. Nothing again. All kitchens empty.

I told Doug she was in trouble, and he told me he would do a ceremony in her honor that Sunday. I never mentioned this to her. But when that Sunday came around, she stepped into my place and said the weirdest thing had just happened to her. She was lying in her basement bed, reading. And a white feather had somehow come out of the ceiling and drifted down to her chest.

Once again, Duane and I laughed. Go, Doug White.

He went to prison on terrible, trumped up charges. I can't go into them here. Only to say I know these charges to be false. The people who conspired against him have now confessed. But Uncle Douglas White, Oglala Lakota medicine man, died in prison. If there is any sin in this world, that is it.

The prison had respect for him. They sent his body home in a three piece suit. Back home, they put him in a traditional ribbon shirt.

So good-night, Uncle Doug. Many tears will fall for you these cold days. But I know what you taught me--in a world of medicine, the soul is not gone. Heck, you might show up in any one of our dreams tonight. I bet you're laughing.

Save The World Continued

2009-11-27T19:18:00.003-06:00

We did our small bit today. It felt good. I thought I'd tell you about it.

We went over to the Feed My Starving Children warehouse. I have mentioned them to you before. I know the Christian trappings of such an organization can alienate some folks, but as you work, they play loud rock and roll music and everybody shouts. So it's not sombre or "holy." You can check them out at www.fmsc.org.

We took our kids, of curse, and the visiting aunt Sue and her 13 year old boys. You work for two hours packaging a scientifically balanced package of food: vegetarian "chicken" powder with flavor & 20 vitamins, freeze-dried veggies, soy, and rice. Each pack contains several meals, and they are measured and weighed carefully as you work. The training takes, oh, 20 minutes.

Fewer bthan 100 strangers gathered, trained and worked. How many meals did we prepare for third world kids? (Haiti, Africa, etc.) By the end of two hours, we had packed 23,544 meals. The value of the food was $4,000.

23,544 meals! In two hours! This means, if you look at it long-term, that 65 children will eat for an entire year. Or hundres will eat for a month. Or thousands for a week. But children will eat.

Check it out. It's fun. It's two hours. And you can keep 23,000 children alive for another day.

They also sell handicrafts, jewelry and art by the women of these villages. Once the women are earning enough money, they can get off the program and feed their kids themselves. The organization does not abandon clients until they are asked to stop once the clients can handle their own needs. So buy a bracelet, or a purse, or some art, or a t-shirt. Or buy the FMSC M&M tube. Once you eat the M&M's, you fill it with quarters and send it back. The tubes pays for 88 meals!

Look, two hours and a mouthful of chocolate can save the world.

There are no small steps.

I'll fill you in on the next event on our Save The World Tour 2010 (we're getting an early jump on it).

I feel good--I knew that I would.
The Hardest Working Man in the Book Business,
The Amazing Mr. Please Please Himself,
The Oddfather of Soul,
Luigi

Giving Thanks

2009-11-26T08:40:00.002-06:00

I woke up with a headache, a sore and stiff neck, and raging allergies. Feeling thankful on this day, in spite of it. There were many mornings not that long ago when I was not sure I would wake up, or wanted to wake up. And now look.

True, all the Best Books of 2009 lists are coming out, and my book isn't on 'em. Hey! I always prided myself on my odd tastes and underground proclivities -- the gals used to complain about how awful my record collection was. Ha ha! And I see now that the books I write that I love are the more obscure ones. How does that work? I'm not sure. But I'm thankful, because I know I have only put out work I am proud of. And every book ends up getting its champions and lovers. INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH has led to amazing days of travel and friendship, lots of mail, good strong sales, and cool swag! Yes! I like presents, y'all.

As you know, this season begins my new phase of the Save the World Perpetual Book Tour. I have been amazed at the strong responses from readers of this blog or Twitter who have been excited by our family policy of changing the world, even in small ways. Because small ways are holy. And here we go!

I have been blessed to have taken aprt in a bunch of small stuff this past year. Raised $ here, sent food there, gave succor to prisoners and beds to wandering writers. It's so good, we're doing it big-time in 2010. Starting now. I won't berate it -- the post is in the archive, below. You know where my heart is. But I will say that tomorrow, we take our kids and our visiting relatives to Feed My Starving Children, where we will pack and ship hundreds of meals for hundreds of hungry third world children. It's a good start.

Soon, I will post a small selection of places you can join us in supporting. Small gifts add up; small efforts, when organized, build a wave. I think we give thanks by giving, period. Sometimes, all you have to give is your soul. That works.

Cinderella came up with a new project...as if we lack projects. It became a bit of a Twitter sensation...for a day. You know how Twitter is. But we were moved by our friend Stephen Elliott's house-to-house guerilla book tour. No publisher support, which is a common thing now. So he has been sleeping over at pals' houses and doing reading for their friends. We thought we'd formalize this and start up the Writer Railroad. Beds and meals and readings/house parties for writers. Cool, eh? Let me know here if you're in. We're organizing our thoughts and plans right now.

Speaking of Stephen--I have to say I am thankful to be in the community of writers. Every eyar I am amazed and humbled that I can visit with heroes and role models, and sometimes I even count them as friends. I know some blog-responders see red when I mention anmes of my colleagues, as if I am accruing points. Screw that. I am giving thanks. Among the many writers I have hung out with, saw again, or met this year were: Chimamanda Adichie, Sherman Alexie, Michael Anania, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Dave Barry, Josh Bazell, Ishmael Beah, Robert Boswell, Chuck Bowden, Ron Carlson, Vikram Chandra, Denise Chavez, Alexander Chee, Ted Conover, Jennine Crucet, Debra Dean, Frank Delaney, David Durham, Stephen Elliott, Debra Magpie Earling, Gary Ferguson, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Jane Hamilton, Ed Hirsch, Craig Johnston, Tayari Jones, Aryn Kyle, Nam Le, Barry Lopez (only on the phone), Thomas Mallon, C.M. Mayo, Colum McCann, Alice McDermott, Ana Menendez, Manuel Munoz, Gina Nahai, Antonya Nelson, Nnedi Okorofor, Daniel Olivas, Sara Paretsky, Francine Prose, Margo Rabb, Richard Russo, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Tom Sleigh, Arthur Sze, Amy Tan, Natasha Tretheway, Calvin Trillin, Scott Turow, Thrity Umrigar, Abe Verghese, Ken Wheaton, Colson Whitehead, C.K. Williams. F'r example. What a blessed, holy year!

Today, I am slugging away with mighty swings to far left field on HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER II. I am getting my graphic novel out soon w/ Christopher Cardinale, MR. MENDOZA'S PAINTBRUSH. I redid the intro to ACROSS THE WIRE for a 2010 re-issue. Have a young adult novel hiding in my drawer. Two volumes of poetry. Have stories in PHOENIX NOIR and in LONE STATE NOIR (that one written with David Corbett). Finishing the intro to David Taylor's epic volume of Border Patrol photos. And then my top-secret love/war/family epic I am drooling over right now! Along with, God willing, movies and movie money so I can launch my press and more Save the World projects.

See what I'm saying?

As Bono sang in "Mysterious Ways": on your knees, boy!

We are well. We are safe. We are healthy. I get to tour. I get to meet hundreds of people a month. My marriage is sound. My kids are happy. My soul is sullied and full of dirty secrets, just like yours. But I feel washed clean.

It's cold outside, but in here, it's warm and smells like pumpkin pie.

I'm thinking of you, sending you what small blessings I have. But mostly, holding you close when my head hits the restless pillow. Do the same for me, won't you?

National Book Award Y Que

2009-11-19T13:19:00.003-06:00

Ah, another round of the wonderful National Book Award has come and gone. I was lucky enough to be a judge in the year Timothy Egan won for non-fiction. We judges got 750 books each--so many books, my little one built a fort with them. Yeah, I was a judge, but I've never been nominated.

No! Nope--no sour grapes. I might not have merited a nomination, let's face it. But not everybody gets in the running. For example, Latinos. They don't.

Oops. Did I say that? Did I say that NBA could mean "No Beaners Allowed"? (I can say "beaner," see, 'cause I was born in Tijuana.) Cinderella and I caused a minor fluff-up of feathers and attitudes over on Twitter when we noted this trend. But I thought it would be instructive to take a look at it. (People say, "But Junot was a judge this year!" Yeah, and neither Drown NOR Oscar Wao, everybody's favorite books, was a finalist in its year.)

This is in no way meant to take anything away from the winners this year. Colum McCann. Dude! One of my favorite people, and if you followed the Aspen "Wastelander" writings (in the blog archive), you know he's a swell and hilarious guy as well as a handsome lad and a fine writer. My most cherished Colum moment in Aspen was at 7:00 in the morning. He came walking through the trees with his trademark scarf, a bottle of wine, a bottle of whiskey, and a bag of chocolates. When I started laughing, he said, "What?"

Rock star all the way.

However, if you look up the NBA lists--not of winners, mind you, just of finalists-- you'll see what I'm talking about. NOT A SINGLE LATINA OR LATINO FINALIST IN FICTION SINCE 1995. And only three Latina/o nominees in fiction over the last 20 years: Rosario Ferre for The House on the Lagoon (1995), Cristina Garcia for Dreaming in Cuban (1992) and Felipe Alfau for Chromos (1990). Uh, hmm.

That means no Latina/o writer was worthy between 1994 (the prize covers the previous year) and 2009. Really? No, I mean, really? Seriously?

I am not going to say all Latina/o writing is great. I am not even going to say it is all good. I don't like many of the books. I don't particularly like a few of the authors. However, if you take a quick look at the overlooked writers (just some of them) since 1994, you can reach your own conclusions. I don't know what it means. I just find it curious. Good for a conversation over a beer or during half-time or after the next episode of GLEE.

Yeah, what the hell--I'll throw my own name in there. I ain't proud. Check it:

Kathleen Alcala,
Julia Alvarez,
Rudolfo Anaya,
Oscar Casares,
Ana Castillo,
Denise Chavez,
Daniel Chacon,
Sandra Cisneros,
Junot Diaz,
Guy Garcia,
Dagoberto Gilb,
Francisco Goldman,
Ray Gonzalez,
Ana Menendez,
Manuel Munoz,
Daniel Olivas,
Benjamin Alire Saenz,
Virgil Suarez,
Ludwig Aethelbert Urias,
Alfredo Vea,
Victor Villasenor,
Helena Maria Viramontes,
Rich Yanez.

You could play all night. Now, obscurity is not the problem--the NBA is proud of its obscure choices. Success isn't the prob--several of these writers/books have done quite well. Do the judges think these are not Americans? (Oh, wait--my man Colum is Irish.) Quality, perhaps? (Alvarez? Cisneros? Gilb? Goldman? Viramontes? Et al?) No, I doubt it.

What, then?

One thing's for sure: every year somebody's going to complain about the NBA. If it isn't the choices selected, it's the meal at the banquet. Ours was rubber chicken with melted library paste--but the tuxes looked sweet. So, Lord knows, I won't criticize.

Matthew Alexander in London

2009-11-18T12:09:00.002-06:00

This is a message to Matthew in drama school in London--thanks for posting a comment on the blog! I am thrilled you are performing my poem. And yes, of course, I'll answer any questions you have. But you didn't give me any contact info! So send me a note w/ your email. I'll be in London with my family in July, by the way. See you then?

Journey's End

2009-11-13T13:08:00.002-06:00

Ugh. A little sick. Too much travel, too many hands shaken, too much bad airplane air. But, since my torture sessions, I mean work-outs, with The Body Editor N. Anderson, my superhuman physique refuses to let little hideous viruses knock me out. They're just wingin' me.

Thanks to all the people who wrote me about my "Holy Lift-Offs" rant in the last post. A joyous outcome of unexpected grace was that a bunch of folks e-mailed me promising to do some small thing to save somebody this year. I was happy about that!

As soon as my juicy Boston paycheck arrives, we will begin the joyous work of slicing it up into useful love-bombs, droppin' hope across the globe. Yes, it's small. So what? Dig this: one year, we were so poor, my mom gave me a simple Christmas present--she wrapped some postage stamps in Christmas paper. That was it. Why? So I could submit one more poem or story in the hopes that someone would publish me.

No, it didn't work. But that act that tiny gift did. If you want to weep over poor ol' Ma, weep over those stamps, over that balogna sandwich she made you that you forgot on the bus--the last balogna in the house. I think a small token of faith, hope, comfort or grace can sometimes sneak through the din and panic. It did for me. Over and over.

When I prayed to die, there would be a cat. Or a poem. Or a song. Or a kiss. All right, 100 kisses. I appreciated and accepted all the kisses that I could get. So we'll see what the filthy lucre does as we unleash its mojo. A big pile of $$$ to Pastor Von: step one. Chickens and milk goats for third world villages. Meals in Chicagoland. School supplies. The loading of meals for our African and other children out there requires no money--just time and sweat. We are down with that. Maybe, if there are a few dollars left of this check, we can invest in a small business or two via kiva.com. Every penny will go out there.

All right. So! I had a lovely visit in Boston this week. Yes, I have been to Boston three times in the last six weeks. I did Maria Hinojosa's "One on One" TV show for PBS. Um. Look. I'm not that good at self-promotion, so I forgot to ask when the show airs. Oops. Twitter people have been mocking me about it.

But, honestly, I don't intend to watch it! But I know Cinderella will figure it out and we'll post it here. You can watch it. It was amazing. I can say that much: Maria and I had a fantastic interview. I just don't want to see myself. I'm like Jack Palance--he never saw one of his own films.

Also, thanks to the many folks who have written about the Playboy story. I thought El Pasoans who didn't get the love-letter aspect of the piece would holler at me, but loads of people have been very kind and enthusiastic. That's great. (Even though some of the best parts were cut out--like Papaburger!) Now, go to El Paso and spend your dollars there. Buy Chico's Tacos. Attend a Radio La Chusma show. Buy Cinco Puntos books at the Cinco Puntos building. Eat at Papaburger! Get a tan. Maybe...just maybe...think twice about going over to Juarez right now.

One last trip to go. Miami. Leaving tomorrow. Trying to get un-sick. If you're there, I will be taking part in the last event on the last day (Sunday). Easy to find.

I will be recuperating and writing for the next two months. Then, I'm going to hit the road HARD in 2010. I've declared it the Save The World Tour. We're going to figure things out, you and I. We're going to plant little mustard seeds of hope and healing everywhere we go. So start thinking.

See you in FLA.

Luigi

Holy Lift-Off: What Do You Do?

2009-11-07T18:45:00.002-06:00

I had a young un ask me, in that snarky collegaite fashion they have, if I had ever given anything back since I'd gotten "rich and famous" talking about the poor. 2,000 people looked on, waiting for my confession. I smiled. You don't have me on that one, son. I was able to say, "Yes."

I may not have the reach of real stars like Oprah, or Bono. I can't change the world, as Bono himself once sang, but I can change the world in me. Nah. I can change the world. I do change the world. And so do you. You see, the secret that OPrah and Bono both know about fame is profound. And absolutely true. Fame is a pastoral position.

That's right. What little bit of renown we manage to scrape together for ourselves is sacred in a strange way. We are to use it to minister to the world. Give back, y'all. Lend comfort. Find the forgotten and remember; find the voiceless and sing their songs; find the hopeless and provide hope; find the loveless and, if not love, then give 'em a damned cheese sandwish and some laughs.

The writers I teach and workshop know this about me. Luis, Closet Mystic. But I know what I'm saying is true.

How do I give back? That is what the kid was asking. Thinking he was tripping me up. He was smirking, the li'l shit. I loved him because I was once that kid, wanting to deflate the fat arrogant liars and hypocrites I saw all around me.

Well, you start by writing to the furthest edge of your ability. You start by never publishing a book you are not proud of. If you have written crap, then put it aside and write better. And you do it by using your real name, your uncommercial weird Mexican border-rat name that editors told you to change so they could sell you better. Yes, back in 1993 I was advised to become more Anglo. Funny, if you know me--I am pretty stinkin' Anglo. I just have the Big Beaner name. Stand! Sly Stone tol' you that a long time ago. STAND.

And you go out there and remember that you started your career as a mission-to-the-poor person. I begane on my knees in the Tijuana garbage dump washing the feet of the poor. Yes. Graduated to killing lice, then putting medicine on tight foreskins so they didn't fester. Real glamor.

Remember that and remember them and treat everyone in the crowd as if they had come to you with cracked, bleeding feet, no hope, no money, no comfort. And they had put their trust in you. Kathi Kamen Goldmark, of the Rock Bottom Remainders, told me at the start: "Always be a gentleman, even if there is only one person in the audience." Give love because you have books, plane tickets, TV interviews, maybe even money--you have what feels like love in this pop culture. Give it.

You give it away. You do high schools and jails and prisons and hospitals for free. You do all local things for free. Or you find out if they have grant money then charge them the maximum and use their money to buy books for their kids. Bam. World-change 101. This year, I wrangled 50 hardcovers out of my publisher for incarecated girls in a California institution.

You use your art. I was able to raise severeal hundred dollars this year by selling off my artworkk. Lots of you know I cartoon a lot. I sold books of art at auction, framed art at other auctions. I am killing myself trying to get the books done in time for Christmas, but I am gonna do it!

You support other writers--you give them blurbs, or you try to help them connect with agents and editors, or you create secret websites for them to workshop in cyber-safety. (Yeah, I did. And no, you can't.) AND YOU TEACH, and you teach like a mo-fo: you teach your heart out.

Then, you give. Give money. That's so easy. We pay for people to have Christmas supper here in Illinois. Last year we paiud for 22 families. This year we plan to provide for 220 families. We pay for school supplies for a few hundred kids: we're going larger this year. We do hands-on work for an org that makes scientifically measured food packets for third world kids, esp in Africa. Our team made 1300 meals last year. Our bigger team is going to destroy that number on the day after Thanksgiving. And you remember your roots: Pastor Von, of Across the Wire, is getting a whopper (for me, like I said, I ain't Oprah or Bono...YET) check this year so the forgotten kids of my Tijuana home town will have Christmas.

That's a start. I could go on. But this isn't a ploy to be recognized as St. Luis. What I want to say is that the Holy Lift-Off is easy. Even a small thing is something. Love isn't a feeling, it's an action. Love is a VERB, peeps. We go out an do it.

We can go to Kiva on the internet, or Heifer International, and we can invest in a small business, or we can send chickens of milk goats to a Congolese village. We can click on any number of websites and support a hungry child for less than it's cost to get TV Guide every week.

But for me, it starts with...the word.

I'm thinking of you. L

Thank You, Austin

2009-11-03T16:14:00.002-06:00

Got back from Texas Sunday night late. Had to get up and teach the next day. The schedule has been like that for the last few months. I feel bad because I am in such a galloping mode that as soon as I leave a place, I am either preparing a class or rushing to the next place...and I forget the details of the place I've just been! Sometimes, I don't remember where I've just been. And I certainly never know where I'm going.

But Austin was great. Clay and his gang have pulled off yet another wonderful book festival. I was delighted to speak with Barbara Renaud G. and C.M. Mayo and that Vato Loco Jimmy Santiago Baca in the capitol rotunda. Lots of love and goodwill in the room, even though some El Pasoans were there and didn't know if they were happy or mad I'd written my Playboy piece. Dude--it's a LOVE LETTER! Ha ha. Actually, a lot of goodwill all around.

I met some new Urrea cousins there, and cousin Dave Duty (of the Tomas Urrea and Gabriela Cantua family)hung out with me. And Michael Anania, great American poet and the father of our writing program at UIC showed up. That was great. I told them I thought I'd only have three or four books to sign, but I signed books at the tent for over an hour. It was like a surprise party.

Got too much work to do! I'm finishing two art projects for charity, writing the intro for David Taylor, doing a review, doing my class, oh and the eternal Hummingbird II. Got the great good news in TX, though, that I have a story in Ray Gonzalez's new Norton anthology, and I didn't even know it.

I think you get so busy with life that you miss life. It's a conundrum.

OK--on to Miami. After that, I think it's over except for local stuff. We're having fam come for Thanksgiving, and we're making them bundle a million meals for third world children, but they don't know that yet. And when Christmas comes, we are turning off the cell, the computer, the twitter, and getting on a boat and sailing down to mysterious pyramids in dark jungles.

I'll write in my notebooks, though.

Sunday, Sunday, Sundayyy!

2009-10-25T16:51:00.002-05:00

See Nitro-Fueled Funny Cars on Sunday! See the Wreckasaurus Giant Fire Breathing Tractor EAT Old Cars on Sunday! See triple-engine rails pull quarter-mile wheelies at 200 mph on SUNDAY!!!!

Or stay home and clean the kid's room and go grocery shopping and write on the computer all day. On Sunday!!!!

I'm banging away at Hummingbird's Daughter II. Any suggestions for a title? Eh? And I am pretty much done with the intro for Across the Wire revised. Yay. Almost done with the intro to David Taylor's book. Yay. And looking at the poems, seeing how they play out, sifting them into a couple of mighty juicy books. Yay. (Haiku, natch, and a general collection.) I have letters of recommendation, an endless tide of requests, and book blurbs, an even more endless tide of demands. Plus class work. trying to get this out of the way before SUNDAY Nov. 1, when I will see you at the Texas Book Festival in Austin. Though thos assholes at UT Austin came after me with a job offer I didn't ask for! See them schmooze us in the back seat of a car! See them offer me a killer job "made for me" for which I am "the right choice at the right time!" See them tell me not to even bother to apply--just send resume and they would "do the rest"! See them wait four months of utter silence then tell me someone better got the job! On SUNDAYYYY!!!!

Ha. It's all a game. Vanity, vanity...and illusion. I'm playing a better game than the English department game right now. U cant touch this!

I look forward to seeing you in TX, amigos. Except the UTA folks--you can stay home.

XXX, L

Workin' It

2009-10-22T14:26:00.002-05:00

My Life in Porn: many nice comments have come in about my cover story in the November (Marge Simpson) Playboy. Thanks, all. It was an amazing El Paso/Juarez jaunt, as those Twitter followers who read my micro dispatches know. You always hate to have your prose trimmed, and the magazine cut out some eccentric stuff to make room for data and quotes backing the story. What-ever, as my kids might say. If I put the essay in a book, I'll put things like Papaburger back in!

As you know, I have been burning it at both ends lately. It has been a great year for short-form Urrealism: stories in two books in the Nior sereies from Akashic Books, a good poem in the premier issue of New Mexico Poetry Review, this Playboy story, intro to the new edition of Across the Wire, intro to David Taylor's new book of photos. Oh, and INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH.

I was in Boston about two weeks ago, speaking at Bunker Hill Community College. Apparently, they decided I had to come back. So I got up at 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday, caught a cab at 4:30, jumped a plane at 6:00. I was in the school by 10:30, speaking by 11:30, and on a plane back in the afternoon. Taugh the next day. Some kind of record, since I also spoke at Chicago's Columbia College the night before the trip. I am tired.

But I am happy to say that I'm giving this week's generous paycheck to charity. All of it. Pastor Von is gonna get a li'l Christmas suprise, and we are going to invest again this year in Thanksgiving suppers for needy families. And I'm looking at buying livestocvk for poor families in Africa and Latin America. Yo--eggs and milk are on me!

I am grateful for the chance to do something meaningful. Thanks to y'all, who keep reading the books, who keep the institutions, bookstores, universities and city councils interested in having me come. Fairfield, CT and Plainfield, IL have selected Into the Beautiful North as all-city reads. So now we have three books in play--three in the rotation. Going to buy lots of food for lots of kids.

I'm thinking of doing my 2010 touring as the Save The World Tour. Will you join me? See how much good we regular people, we who are not BONO, can do to ease the pain.

It's raining here. Stay warm. I'm thinking of you....
Mr. Soul

Phoenix Noir and the Gathering Storm

2009-10-08T11:36:00.003-05:00

I slept in late today. Yes! After the recent orgy of public speaking, I felt really tired, not so much in my body but in my mind. To do the Urreashow, I think you have to pump oxygen into the reactor and reach some level on incandescence. It's hard to explain. But I have this need to reach the farthest seats in the house. Is this ego, or is it the old missionary zeal? Maybe I think I'm Bruce Springsteen or something. I feel awful if I see someone bored or distracted. But all that contact tends to pull a bit of the pep out of the core.

We are hunkering down for the first snow of the year. Oh nooooo! If it comes, it will be the earliest measurable snow recorded in Chicagoland. Can you believe that? Snow, along with sub-freezing temps. So much for our Fall plants we bought!

I got an award from the Secretary of State here in Illinois. A few of us were singled out--Latino authors. I am grateful to be honored, and a bit rueful--I had to fly out of town on the day of the ceremony so I didn't even get to go to it. I don't know if we got plaques, or certificates, or just brunch.

I am working semi-hard on the sequel to Hummingbird's Daughter. Those who follow on Twitter have gotten some running commentary on the process. It's so easy to pop 140 characters onto the cell phone! I think it's good.

I wanted, though, to tell you about the new PHOENIX NOIR. It's in the noir series that Akashic Books has been releasing to such acclaim for the last couple of years. This one has heroes in it--Lee Child! Don Winslow! And good buds, too, like David Corbett. When I was invited, I had to try. So I wrote a nasty story called "Amapola." It's an antidote to those who make fun of me for writing "fell-good new age" stuff like Hummingbird.

You know: sex, dope, rock and roll, high school and mudering narcotraficantes. What's not to love?

The book hits the stands soon--and I hope you'll get it. Publisher's Weekly just reviewed it, and they gave the book a star. That's special. I am insanely proud that they singled out my story as a high point. I always felt too obtuse to write a good mystery, and that's a good thing or all I'd be doing would be detective books about hard-boiled border sleuths. Hey...wait a minute....

Corbett and I have just finished a new story for LONE STAR NOIR, the next in the series.

Finally, my big ol' El Paso story runs in the November Playboy. I hope you like it. Don't look at the pictures.

Baby, it's cold outside--
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, L

And Boy Are My Arms Sore

2009-10-05T11:52:00.003-05:00

Just flew in from Oregon. (Rimshot. Thank you, Ladies and Gennermen.) The general blitz has now abated. Where'd I go? I don't remembere. I was in Northern CA, and I was in Kentucky, and I was in Boston and I was in D.C. The Eugene library event was amazing and slightly cosmic, with folks whispering in my ear as they came by for a hug after the talk. I get hugged a lot. As a correlative, I get kissed a lot too. Nice job if you can get it. I also get photographed a lot with my arm around someone--well, a woman--that I don't know. There must be 1,000 senior prom pix of me with people I don't know huggin' in out. I wonder what Cinderella thinks of that. I'd better not look at Facebook too much.

So much I want to get to! So much to do around here at the website! And writing...gee. Remember when I wrote books? Wasn't that cool?

I have a few things left on my plate in '09: Arkansas, and Austin, TX.

The rest is teaching and trying to get some quality time on Hummingbird II. Whatever it will end up being called. We call it Queen of America right now, but that's not going to cut it.

OK, amigos. I have to go to work. UIC is waiting patiently for me to return. But I will spend more time with you here with new blog projects and Hummingbird updates. Check out the new PHOENIX NOIR. It got a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and they singled out my humble story! Funny, but INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH didn't get a star, and it's 40 times better than my li'l mystery story. Just goes to show, you can't believe the hype, or the non-hype. Go with what you love. Damn the torpedos!

See you here soon.
Luigi

Good Morning

2009-09-18T09:23:00.002-05:00

Waiting to go down to our trainer's torture chamber, I mean, workout studio. It has been a busy week--what with the trip to CA and the sweet prayer breakfast with the Latino community at De Paul University. I had a good time in Los Altos--there were, probably, 400 people in the church where I spoke. It was a warm event, full of good cheer. But it was all hurry-hurry because I'm trying to attend to my UIC students, but I still mess things up and ended up missing one class though we tried to have it all planned out. So I flew to CA and got up early and spoke and flew home. ZOOM! I think my new stage name will be "The Blur."

Living on sandwiches. That's one part of the lit-biz I don't love. Though the perpetual return to O'Hare at midnight is eerie and might be kind of interesting...or depressing. I can't ever tell. It's all echoing and vast, and these cheerful female robot voices speak in the empty halls. It's like a dystopian 70s SF movie. Myself and my fellow zombies shuffle around under neon tubes.

Not being able to tell what is what. That seems to be the prevailing malady for me. You get to the place where, for example, people are talking to you, about you, and you don't know what to think. Who am I, again? For example, a generally supportive onlin jurnal posted a fairly positive review of my latest novel, but not crazy about it. It was OK, but certainly not the lofty Hummingbird's Daughter. That's fair. But then a writer from that same journal tells me the new book is brilliant and remarkable, and they need to feature it. Um. But how'd it get so brilliant in the last two months? And will this review replace the previous review?
As Dave Egger said, What is the what?

I was told, by two different folks, in the same day, that I was very humble. And that I was no longer humble. D'oh! When I'm more awake, things like that make me laugh.

So, you know--keep focused. Do your work. Be honest. What else can you do?

Me, I'm a dad and a husband and I have two dogs, two cats and a rat and a parrot. I like good peaches. I like sunflowers. I put seeds in my feeder. Don't like to work out.

It would not be humble to say I am humble.

Ha hahahaha.

Time for the sit-ups.

On the Road Again

2009-09-14T14:11:00.002-05:00

Right, you lot! Time to stop all this muckin' about and get on the plane!

I am on my way to Los Altos, CA to have a friendly breakfast with 200 new pals. It's one of those overnight trips, so my bag is blessedly light. Underpants and a necktie. Why be fussy? Get back tomorrow, finish a book review for Washington Post, get up early for yet another breakfast bash at De Paul U. Rush to work, teach, home. Get busy on stories. (I am writing Hummingbird II right now! Yes! The start is good, but you know how Teresita and Tomas are--we have hundreds of pages to go.) (I am also working on the new intro to the revised Across the Wire coming from Anchor, and the intro to David Taylor's new book of Border Patrol photographs, and I just helped Ilan Stavans cut the opening section of Devil's H to fit into the new Norton he's editing. Etc. Mucho trabajo.) Then, on Saturday, we will be off for Washington DC where I'll get the great opportunity to speak about revelation for PEN. Ugh....a tux. Oh well. I always feel like James Bond once I get it on.

The Perpetual Book Tour, Phase 100, is lighter than in years past. But, you know, schools are discovering they have a little more $ than they thought they ahd in this melt-down and are starting to scramble again. Now, I speak about Devil's H, then Beautiful North, and then Hummingbird...about in that order. I suspect that, for a moment, it'll be Across the Wire. Then, when the graphic novel (Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush, from Cinco Puntos P) comes out, it'll be that--Christopher Cardinale (the artist) and me making the rounds. Or some mutation of all of the above.

Oh yeah--there's that Playboy story on El Paso in November.

So things are good. I'm pretty busy, but not weeping blood like I was last year. Basically, trying to write you the best book you ever read. That's what I'm always hoping to do.

I've got blisters on me fingers!
Lucius Aethelbert Urias of the Spanish Visigoths

The Newness

2009-09-03T12:20:00.002-05:00

Home after all that travel (see post below), I have been focusing on teaching at UIC. But I have a lot of projects. I feel like a really old Epson computer with too many programs running at once and my rickety disk drive is starting to whine a little. Smells hot.

My El Paso piece in Playboy (many of you followed the updates on Twitter) is all designed and looks great. They used my friend David Taylor's pictures--they even (duh, it's Playboy) found a female Border Patrol agent. Hmmm. I hear she is amused by the fact that she can boast she was featured in Playboy. "The Girls of Federal Law Enforcement"??? Anyway, the piece will run in November, so husbands can finally be telling the truth when they say they're buying it for the articles.

The Hummingbird's Daughter alleged movie is murky to me. Maybe it's happening, maybe it's not. That's why you have movie agents--the Hollywood thing is so strange as to beggar belief. If you watch Entourage on HBO, you know what it's like.

By the way, speaking of David Taylor, I am writing the intro to his book of Border Patrol photgraphy. He has put in over 700 hours with the USBP. The book will be a revelation.

I am also writing the new preface to the reissue (YES!) of Across the Wire. Anchor Books is redesigning and redoing my po' ol' first book--at last. It'll look all fresh, and it will finally have some new blurbage and a new cover and an update. I am very excited about that.

I have to write a short essay on "Revelation" for PEN, have to rent a tux, have to write some book reviews, have to edit some of Devil's Highway for the new Norton antho, and have to get ready to hit the road again. DC, TX, Arkansas, right here in Chi-town, CA--all kinds of events.

So! Busy as usual! Oh...and I'm writing Hummingbird II. Yup. I actually started it. Hard to believe, but I'm writing it.

My garden's shot, man--I haven't had time to do anything to it this year. Still, the daisies were huge, and the sweet alyssum went crazy, and the Mexican sunflowers were a miracle. The wild turkey even came back.

Found hawk feathers all over my lawn. Must be a harbinger of something or other.

Miss you. I'll see you out there. Or here. Or on Twitter.

XXX, L

Midnight

2009-08-31T11:43:00.002-05:00

We sleep.
Pale moths fondle
late summer window screens, paper
bark birch owl ignites
our bedroom with amber eye-gleam, bats
drop -- black leaves
from the tree of night, stranded
in her dark house, our neighbor
sips whiskey to feel warm
again.
We sleep.
Poems
are forever
awake.

Oh, Hello Mr. Soul I Dropped By

2009-08-25T10:40:00.002-05:00

To Pick Up a Reason... Home again, home again, jiggity-jig. Boy, what a summer.

Let's see--those of you who might have followed via random posts or Twitter (find us at Urrealism), know what happened. I abandoned this blog in the middle of the Aspen Wastelanders. Too bad! You never got to see Colum McC in action. But events came on like a tidal wave and carried me far out to sea. (Remember Don Gibson? Sea of heartbreak--lost love, loneliness, memories of your caress.... Man, it's 1962 in my head.) Just wildness and hustle.

So, Book Tour you know about. It was gigs/interviews in Denver, Kankakee, Naperville, Boulder, San Diego, Pasadena, San Francisco, Berkeley, Capitola, Napa, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, NYC. Did I miss anything? Gradmna died in the middle of this, when we were supposed to head for DC, and when we were supposed to do Printers Row in Chicago. We did do BEA. If you mix heart-rending funeral with family and book tour, you have a memorable time. I hooked up w Sherman Alexie in NYC, but didn't see him in Seattle. Saw my ol' high school sweetie, Jan, in Seattle, and hung w her goth guitarist daughter, the incomparable Carpathian Roses. Had a wild event in San Diego w 300 people and saw Dear Prudence whom some of you have met in ancient postings here, as well as many old friends and my half-brother's new Filipina bride. Head spinning. Did West Coast Live radio show in Napa and attended Kathi Kamen Goldmark's Rock Bottom Remainder wedding to Sam Barry in SF, then got savaged by the SF Chronicle in one of the greatest personal assault reviews ever, but licked my wounds w the insanity at the Writers With Drinks reading in the Make Out Room. Thank you, Charlie Jane.

It was quite challenging, I will admit. But Tour Discipline prevailed, as well as my training from Nikki Anderson, The Body Editor. Stronger body helped. Then--BAM!--
back home to do laundry and pack the van and drive to Aspen for their writers' conference. Still in shock over Grandma. A week of writing grace and madness and sorrow and joy all in a ball. Then--BAM!--home again, thinking I had a break between Aspen and Bread Loaf. But, oddly, Playboy called and gave me an assignment to go to El Paso and INVESTIGATE the crazy border scene. How do you fail to accept that? So I packed up and went there, stayed with Bobby and Lee Byrd. Wild border madness, long days wandering, poking my nose in where it shouldn't be, looking at Pancho Villa's chopped off finger, crawling thru cemeteries, interviewing politicians, beer at gay bars, rocking out to concerts, hanging w Border Patrol, late night basketball tournaments in the crack hood, getting creeped up on by bad guys at Border Boundary Marker # One across the river.

Got home, wrote like a maniac, packed and went to Vermont. Braed Loaf was, again, but more so this time, a love-fest. I was much more steady this time, knew the ropes. My workshop was called "The Circle of Love." All of them were good writers. My TA/co-pilot was Aryn Kyle, author of THE GOD OF ANIMALS. Cindy was able to stay with me for much of the time before coming hom to get the girls ready for school. We stayed down the mtn from everybody in the delightfully creepy big house known as Earthworm. Old books. Weird noises. One of the dresser drawers had writing inside of it. Life stories written on the wood.

Here's an amazing bit of strangeness. There is a great American poet named Tom Sleigh. I went to high school w a great American hellraiser named Tom Sleigh. We acted together in drama. Turns out, the poet is the high school kid! We went insane when we realized it. Now, here's a kicker--Brigis Pegeen Kelly, the poet, was also there. Her aunt, the famous Mrs. McGinnis, was our drama teacher! Tom and I introduced ourselves to people as "This is my oldest newest friend."

Hummingbird fans will know I have this mojo thing w hummingbirds and dragonflies. Last year, at Bread Loaf, a big fat dragonfly flew up to my face and hovered there, staring at me. When it flew away, I called, "Hey! Come back!" It flew right back and hovered at my face again. Oo-ee-oo. Twilight Zone for Mr. Mystical. This time, I had given out my "This I Believe" piece from the NPR show--dragonflies figure greatly in it--and wouldn't you know it, when I got donw w my reading, a big dragonfly flew into the theater and hovered above me. I am glad I didn't see it--maybe too much for one day. But my students saw it.

But I had to leave early to get to Florida. UF had chosen Devil's Highway as their communtiy read. They ordered nearly 8,000 copies of the book! On the long drive from Bread Loaf to the Burlington airport, I was happy to see a two-humped camel eating hay in a field.

In FLA I had the biggest crowd I'll ever see. 7,000 people. It was a sports arena, full to the top. Four Jumotron screens. Now, if you've followed this blog at all, you know how ghastly the prospect of four of my faces blown up to Godzilla size and leering down at me is for me. Gyaaah! I just didn't look. Don't look, and the bogeyman will go away.

Now I'm teaching.

I am baffled by the whole thing. Grateful for the good, resigned to the bad. Reviews for ITBN have been 90% awesome. A few have been angry that the book isn't Hummingbird or Devil's H. Yo! Joke's on you! I will not write the same book over and over. I found it funny that some critics now suggest Hummingbird (or DH, or--cripes--Across the Wire)are among the best books ever published. Really? Where were you when they came out? You must have been at Knott's Berry Farm or Six Flags riding the roller coasters.

You know what Public Enemy said: Don't believe the hype! It's true. Just write good books (or as good as you can)and read good books (or as good as you can) drink plenty of water, do your sit-ups and take your vitamins. And watche "Mad Men"!

ITBN, I believe, will be a movie and I hope to tell you the details soon. Hummingbird starts filming (allegedly) in January. My Playboy piece comes out in November. The graphic novel of "Mr. Mendoza's paintbrush" drops in early 2010. Now, I'm on Hummingbird II.

Whew.

XXX, Luigi

Viva El Chuco

2009-08-07T11:51:00.002-05:00

Just got back from El Paso. I spent a week there sniffing around for PLAYBOY. Nope, it wasn't about strippers or The Girls of UTEP. It was all about the strange peace that prevails in El Paso, while just across the river there have been thousands of murders in the last coupld of years. I had an amazing visit with the Byrds (publishers of Cinco Puntos Press) and all my pals old and new. Met the red-hot banda, Radio La Chusma. Made a new friend in Border Patrol supervisory agent Paul Wells. Hung out with Benjamin Alire Saenz (for you literature fans). And cruised around the hunted downtown with David Romo. I saw Pancho Villa's chopped off finger, wandered in the spooky wasteland behind the abandoned ruins of the ASARCO smelter, got creepy-crawled by bad guys on the other side of the river, ate fine food and sloppy burgers and deadly tacos, bought books, babysat a giant black cat, visited gay bars, went to dances, made Border Patrol guys give me the stink-eye by driving where I shouldn't have driven, went to concerts, and visited an abandoned graveyard where I heard the voices of women. Nobody else there. Oh yeah, man--a great trip.

Now, if I can just get the story worked out right, it ought to be in the November issue.

I'm doing book reviews and blurbs, meeting with my dear new movie pals on ITBN film version, and packing. Off to Vermont on Monday to teach at Bread Loaf. I wish I could give you more stories on this website, but time runs out.

Just wanted you to know I'm staying busy, rounding on Hummingbird II, and writing a LOT. (Five notebooks full in El Paso--way too much for the PLAYBOY story.) I try to keep up the flow over on twitter, so if you're interested in the latest, you can find me there at Urrealism.

I'm thinking of you, I'm dreaming about you, I'm whispering your name...

Luigi

Notes on Writing THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER

2009-07-18T12:30:00.003-05:00

You don't often get to peek behind the curtain. Most of you know that HUMMINGBIRD took me 20 years to complete. We often talk about doing a non-fiction book of some of my experiences in the Twilight Zone of that experience. (And, yeah, I'm starting on HUMMINGBIRD II right now.)

During the long year and a quarter I lived in Tucson, doing the research and the medicine work and wrestling ghosts and devils (I'm not being cute), I had trouble focusing after a while. The night siege was so intense sometimes, and my own travails in love, career, writing, friendship, and personal finances so harrowing, that I was busted down to reading haiku. I couldn't process long texts. Issa, Buson, Basho, Onitsura were my best friends in that lonely desert.

So, for your curiosity and perhaps pleasure, here are some haiku-form notes on the experience of writing THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER.

#

SONORAN DESERT SUTRAS:
Notes on Writing The Hummingbird's Daughter in Tucson

(Sonora Review 56, 2009.)

for Brian Andrew Laird

Despairing of God
I went to the desert
to seek my own saint.

#

Haunted adobe--
candelabra's melting stubs--
wax that fell was black.

#

If I went downstairs,
heard kitchen racket overhead--
nobody else there.

#

Disembodied hand
tarantula-crawled across
white sheet to my face.

#

Medicine woman
cooking her green tamales
held me when I wept.

#

Beer with Chuck Bowden.
Three o'clock coffee with Laird.
Writers at The Cup.

#

Sunset desert hikes
meeting javelina gods
white roadrunner guide.

#

In the old archive
librarian grabbed my hands
and cried, "Please heal me!"

#

Drove Ed Abbey's car
no muffler up to Denver--
ghost in Cadillac.

#

Someone set a fire
and tried to burn the place down
slit apart the bed.

#

on the torillas
in the refrigerator
one dead rattlesnake

#

men target shooting
at fake clay pigeon CDs--
Front 242

#

The medicine man
said, "I will give you a dream"--
gave me green rock: dreams.

#

Teresita came
Walking from the other side,
Brought me white flowers.

#

San Xavier del Bac
lit Teresita candles
hillside holy hours.

#

Three a.m. hiking
in the desert with women
who laughed in the dark.

#

Watching the comet
at the end of the highway
her hip cocked on mine.

#

No, don't speak his name!
I heard the Knocker Angel
pounding on my door.

#

So many devils
unleashed by the medicine
I slept with a knife.

#

Mt teacher took me
to ask questions of the plants--
I felt like a child

#

Halloween midnight
one wrecked car blocking the road--
single human leg.

#

One box Minute Rice--
one old cat, half deaf, half blind--
abandoned to trust.

#

Yaqui funeral--
old man in his black coffin
colder than the moon.

#

First monsoon rainstorm--
I finally saw miracles--
frogs leaped from the ground.

#

Female medium
insisted spirits told her--
I'd signed questionnaire.

#

Tinajas Altas--
couldn't find any water,
someone left a can.

#

After the car wreck,
100 trucks drove over
the children's clothing.

#

At old copper mine
pondering day's lessons
coyotes stalked me.

#

The angry scholar
called to threaten a lawsuit
if I wrote the book.

#

She said we were twins
separated in heaven--
did I want to party?

#

The Hotel Congress
was still a holy vortex--
Dillinger slept there.

#

Down in Mexico
The curanderas fed me
Bowls of green Jell-O.

#

Teresita's niece
wakes up on certain mornings
floating in the air.

#

Standing in graveyards
in Clifton, Arizona--
thought I might find her.

#

"I'm their worst nightmare!"
he said in his adbobe--
"Liberal with guns!"

#
Medicine woman
said she missed grandmother's ghost
since it left with me.

#

The saint's granddaughter
heals families in Phoenix--
danced for Dean Martin.

#

Holy woman said,
"In heaven you'll have a job!"
Shaking her finger.

#

When down to nothing
the spirits bring miracles--
one dollar Whopper.

#

Hiking Sheep Pen Trail
vulture flew up behind me--
my shadow grew wings.

#

Mostly it was work
alone on old computer--
Nine Incha Nails all night.

#

I learned something there
From the Saint of Cabora--
Every day's sacred.

A Pause in the Wastelanders for Audio

2009-07-16T10:13:00.002-05:00

"I wanted to be a pop star, that's what I wanted to be...." --Cat Stevens.

I can't play guitar, but I can still give good audio! Had a blast on Blogtalk Radio with Miriam Parker. Thought you might enjoy hearing it if you're bored or tired of housework/writing/reruns:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/LittleBrown/2009/07/14/Live-Interview-w-Luis-Urrea-author-of-INTO-THE-BEAUTIFUL-NORTH

Hope that link works for ya!

Wastelander Aspen III

2009-07-13T15:29:00.000-05:00

The last time we drove thru Leadville
some high country Hip Hop Gangstas
had spray painted this on a wall:
LEADVILLE! WE
THA SHIT.

Gas station toilet stop, speaking of
bodily functions: ½ hr wait in line.
Sign over side door:
THIS DOOR MUST REMAIN
“LOCKED” AT ALL TIMES.
Door standing
wide open.

Hurry Up, Kid, We Need to Pee:
The whole line listens to the little boy
before Cindy & Chayo
tear off 11 straight
paper towels inside the
bathroom.

#

Tho I’m the fam’s nature freak
I totally heart filthy
wrecking yards even more
than nature.
10,000 rusted stories,
10,000 cracked hauntings.

#

1968 Mustang fastback
in front of me
more beautiful
than the glaciers.
Viva Estip McQueen!

#

Twin Lakes!
Yeeeeeeah.
Right there. Uh-huh.
Grow my beard
down to my gut.
Talk to beavers.

#
Tiny waterfalls leap
out of the trees and whisper, “Hey Buddy!”
to the van.
Can’t help but shout
at them.
I invite a skinny waterfall
to jump in and drive to Aspen.

#

We’re so high now the flytrap’s gasping.

#

Down the Independence Pass to Aspen.
I realized suddenly that I
was keeping the van from hitting
the cliff walls with the muscles
in my buttocks.

#

Sunny rain.

#

ASPEN, later that same day….
Aspen Institute/ Aspen Meadows hotel.
Checking at the lobby, I saw Ishmael Beah.
We looked at each other and said
“PLAYBOY” and started laughing.
[Note: a couple of years ago, Beah and Michael Eric Dyson and Tony D’Souza and I were photographed for long hours for an expensive Playboy photo shoot. No, there were no nude women. Basically, it was authors wearing fancy clothes in bizarre scenarios. They handed Ishmael an AK-47, which failed to amuse him. Dyson was in a flooded bus with drowning Black kids while white businessmen in fancy suits stood in the sun outside. Very post-Katrina. I was given a crown of thorns and a Mexican flag and stood above 14 body bags. Did I like it? Hmm. They gave me a billion dollar hand made Italian suit. Playboy put me in a hotel w/ a chandelier in my room, a liveried butler, and James Bond robo-TV screens that levitated out of the footboard of my bed. But…when I walked in to get my clothes, the fashionista rhino-woman doing the dressing looked at me and shouted “Fuck!” This little piggy almost went home right there. Then the photographer had a falling out or something and the shoot was scrapped. I kept my suit.]
#

Sunny condo. Wall of windows
looking out on aspens and the Roaring Fork down the canyon.
Scott, the master of the grounds,
drove us over here in a golf cart.

We feel like rich people.

Wait.
We are rich people.
Just don’t have the money.
Yet.

#

I could live like this.
I want to live like this.
Can I live like this?

The world outside weeps for murdered Neda in Tehran.
We sip billionaire coffee as the river
murmurs.

#

Off to the writers’ reception.
We watch Ron Carlson get the Aspen
Literary Award. Afterwards,
We hug all our Aspen Writer org friends.
The kids in their own condo squabbling over
cable . We’re all degenerates.
Tipsy Aspen ladies swoon over
Hummingbird: I collect more kisses.
My job: gal-magnet.
Someone tells me Into the Beautiful North
is selling “Phenomenably.”
Hope they don’t mean
“abominably.”

My ol’ pal/NEA bossman Dana Gioia.
[Note: Great American poet & former head of the NEA. Wow. Notes. I feel like a scholar.]

We say hi, but then a fan & his wife
shove me aside to talk to Dana. Relaying awe & love
to the Great Man.
Dana
smiles placidly.

Off to the Hernandez house!
Dana, master of Washington, announces, “I know
exactly where the party is!” We march off
at a splendid pace! We stride right past
Lance Armstrong’s house! Huzzah!
I am an architectural fame-whore! Lance! Lance!
Dana warns us bears sneak around the hallways of our condos
looking for room service trays to violate.
Suddenly, we pause, and he says, “Which direction
is the Hernandez house, do you think?”
Goldang it! The administration has let us down again!
Dana marches into a woman’s garage and asks her!
Viva Aspen! We’re off again. We round a corner.
We don’t know where we are! Dana gets out his cell phone.
This is how it’s done! Power hook-ups! DC in action.
“Where,” he booms, “is the party?”

AHA! The party!
We march in and Dana switches to full politico
Republican Party Animal mode and begins
shaking hands like a former governor. I love that.
I want to learn how to do that. Presto! A drink
appears in Dana’s hand and in 37.4 seconds, he is
embroiled in a profound literary/politico chat!
We stand in the kitchen like rubes going, “Hyug!
Hyug! Goll-y, you have real paintings in here!”
Fortunately, Gary Ferguson is a real gentleman
and saves us.
[Note, for those of you who don’t know Gary, AND YOU SHOULD,
he is the noted naturalist/”nature writer” who lives outside
Yellowstone and is writing the most killer book
of the year right now.] We go thru the food line
together and hook up w/ my ol’ pal Christopher Merrill.
[Yes, a freakin’ note: Good poet. Go read him.]
These fine fellows lead us out to a stone wall
where we perch and admire the nine million dollar view
and talk shop. Gary and I have an appearance together
later in the week. “What are you going to do?” he
asks. “I don’t know,” I say. “What are YOU
going to do?” “I don’t know,” he says.

Wine. Food. Singing—Joe Hurley, Colum McCann’s
rock star amigo, appears and sings a few at the
piano. (A piano, by the way, built for the
original Queen Mary.) Ishmael Beah says to me,
“Sometimes I cannot believe what people
just said to me!”

Dana and Joe can party all night. Not us.
We are just Maw and Paw, and we want to go to bed.
A car appears, and many of us pile in. I, being selfish,
grab the front seat. Cinderella, Beah, Chimamanda Adichie[I’m
not writing any more notes!] and Gary make a human
logjam in the back.

Chimamanda says, “This reminds me of Nigeria.”
I say, “Mexico, too. Except in Mexico,
someone would have added a chicken.”
After a beat, she says,
“Nigeria too!”

We tumble out of the car at the Meadows in
utter darkness and wander away,
looking at stars like sugar
spilled across an obsidian counter,
listening for
bears.

Wastelander Aspen II

2009-07-06T18:40:00.001-05:00

Wastelander Aspen II

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Franz Ferdinand
The Thermals
Manchester Orchestra
Tiny swallows at Starbucks
making a circus
in the sky.
Huge mayfly
the source of their enthusiasm
sitting on my finger
being very friendly.

Nebraska! Home of Hot Cars!
At every stop, a rod:
red Challenger,
red Camaro,
red Firebird,
red SS Malibu.

#

Muse
The Black Keys
NIN
Bad news still doggin’ us:
the storms we drove thru yes
terday blew our big pine tree down
onto the neighbor’s roof.

Of course, the traditional Urrea Wen-Fu view
would dictate that the pine tree
could have fallen the other way & crashed
thru our roof & busted open my office
& soaked all my notebooks and research but only
Swooned for a nap on the neighbor’s garage.

Zen aqui, amigo!
Wabi Sabi, sabe?

#

Welcome to COLORFUL Colorado!

Colorado loves me.
The eastern plains
soft yellow under heavy grape/gray skies
can heal me.
Bring it: rain, lightning, Rockies,
buffalo, aspens, magpies.
Bring it.

#

Here it comes: Colorado rain.
One million miles of the scent
of wet soil, drenched
hay. Prairie incense.

#

Magpie runs across I-76
too fat & lazy to fly.

#

Suddenly, The Angel of Writing
revealed herself to me
above the Colorado plains.
Her sword
was sharper than cold wind. She
gave me a dispensation.
They can’t touch me now.
We pull into Bella Luna’s rancho,
Castle Rock.

#

FATHER’S DAY.

The most glory-drunk hot Colorado
morning. Nothing
but big blue light.
Wind like ocean surf
coming thru the pastures & pines.
Cricket hinges squeaking rusty,
grasshopper ratchets
clicking up the sun.
Even the dogs know it’s perfect.
The big red bull, not so much.
But the barn cat
rolls in garden-love, looking to
rip apart some butterflies.
& hummingbirds
inspect their reflections
in the kitchen windows.

Fam buys me a Ray Charles CD &
off for Aspen.

#

I almost shout, “Deer!”
but it’s only a
bus stop bench.

#

The addicts
speed to Starbucks.
That. Right there.
Do you see it? That glacier smile
up there? Snowpack like teeth?
That great western wall of mtns?
That
is what I think about
every day.

I cannot not
be happy seeing the face
of my guru/girlfriend/muse
the Holy Rocky Mtns.

Now we ascend. Van says,
“What, are you kiddin’ me?”

#

Is it foolish to feel love
just because
the landscape
turns vertical?

#

Tailings from 1,000
dead gold-mines like
blonde beards
on the slopes
w/ arsenic in their whiskers.

#

Cinderella accuses me
of making the trips more difficult
by bringing things like
Venus flytraps
but I know
I make the trips more complex,
more interesting &
weird.
The soul likes
weirdness.

This soul does, anyway.

#

So many lodgepole pines
killed by drought and beetles, but
still standing, gray
exclamation points
in this long green paragraph.

#

Dylan: “Well my heart’s in the highlands….”

Big kids keep their earbuds screwed in
As I keep bellowing, “That’s so cool!”
Nature. So
BO
RING.
#

Arkansas River meanders the back country.
Feeling mild.
Pauses to meditate
at beaver dams.

#

Dead gas station.
Dead motor court.
Dead truck.
All white.
All poems.

#

Tha Arkansas, man—right at that bend
by the old log cabin gone
curvy as rubber in the corners—
is the kind of river
you could shake
hands with.

#

All right. That’s it.
A taco truck in Leadville.
GOOD LIVING AT
10,200 FEET.

Mexico wins.

Wastelander Aspen

2009-07-04T12:40:00.002-05:00

Wastelander I

“I am what is around me.” --Wallace Stevens, “Theory”

#

Illinois to Colorado June 2009

Achin’ and weary after a month
on the road, book tour and burying Grandma
too much monkey business spinnin’ head blues.

But the road is open.
And off, across the Ol’ Miss, beyond the corn,
across Iowa, across
Nebraska,
The Holy Stony Mtns
still rise like a step
ladder to God,
they’re still calling.

#

Illinois
the night before—
waiting
for midnight tornado.

#

FRIDAY
No tornado action:
minor basement flooding.
Again.

Thunder rumbles to the west.
We roll
into twister
territory.

#

Rest area writing break:
insane angry sky delivered
kung-fu beatdowns to the earth.
rained so hard
it looked like fog
made of boulders.
Clouds sped south barely skimming
the tops of low prairie trees.
Then sped north a mile away.
South: all black.
Lightning in place for long beats
like a Dali surreal crutch
holding up the storm.
Guy in front of us forced
onto the shoulder by rain-fear. Then

a break

and suddenly:

sheep!

#

Iowa. Green.
The Mississippi whispering
its old come-on:
“Psst! Hey kid! Throw in
a raft—I’ll take ye
to New Orleans!”

#

Taco Bell in Iowa. Mixed metaphor.
Man taking orders has a Bluetooth,
talks to his wife as he takes orders
saying, “Hi Babe,” and “I love ya
honey” and “OK Sweetie!” while
Iowans stare and mutter, “Huh?
All I want’s a burrito.”

Me? I’m wearing my
Funkadelic
Maggot Brain
t-shirt.

I get looks.
I’m like,
“What?”

#

Thinking:
Hey—what is that sculpture over there?
Realizing:
Oh! It’s farm equipment.

#

Rich electro-dung
fertilizes these fields—we scatter
BBC Radio 1 in the middle of
the Great Plains, we’re
Twittering, checking
book reviews on the iPhone, a spy
satellite murmurs co-ordinates to us in
a bored Brit woman’s voice on the GPS,
the kids work computers, personal audio
systems and Gameboys in the back.
Poor ol’ me,
pen in hand &
notebook on knee.

#

I brought a venus flytrap for a mascot.

#

WTF # 1:
Tanker truck in front of us
hauling double-tanks:
PORK PLASMA—
Not For Human Consumption.

#

It’s the distant dead farms
gone silvergray in the weather, gone
off-plumb and about to topple
that are the best:
whole crops of story & song
in those shadows.

#

Monster sky bends down to look at us.
His belly is so dark
highway light post bulbs
flicker on.

And

The Red Sea
closes over the highway.

Violence. Wind, standing water,
hammering rain,
no visibility. Van slides.
Cars fall away.

You start to look
For funnel clouds.

“Auntie Em! Auntie
Em!”

#

Rain too loud to hear radio.
Lightning forms webs above us.

#

Chayo and I buck the family’s
chocolate trend
& eat carrots.

#

Rain on and off all day. Council Bluffs in gloom.
Coffee. Des Moines invisible in downpour.
Coffee.

I want to live on the banks of the Raccoon River.
Or even better, The Little Raccoon.
“Little Raccoon” sounds like
A poem by Mary Oliver or
A kids’ book title. I’ll take it!

#

Western Iowa traffic jam. Seriously?
Between soy bean fields and cattle yards?
10 miles an hour.
cows and crows
are mocking us.

#

Baffled by my past.
Astounded by my present.
Surrendered to my future.
#

Middle River has a dull name,
but is a pretty little thing.
A slender beauty
looking shy down there
among the cottonwoods.

#

Through a vast wind-farm,
where the propeller towers
rotate silently, turning their faces
like giant robot sunflowers.

#

Lincoln. Omaha. Slog in variable sun.
Fall into motel. Chayo’s mood ring
says I am tired.

Bad food. No blankets for the kids. The
hotel room trash can
has a dog food can in it. And I got
slaughtered in the S.F. Chronicle today.
Crazy mouth-foaming assault that will, I swear,
seem funny in a few days.
I am not only a bad writer, but a stupid writer, and worse
critics dare compare me to Garcia Marquez! It’s the first
review ever of my blurbs!
Wait, it’s already funny.

#

SATURDAY

Last night, as we got into bed,
a huge black motel beetle
jumped out of the pillow and onto
Cinderella’s hair & the girls
started screaming w/ Instant
Beetlephobia.
I really shouldn’t laugh.

#

Bad book review?
Sun’s up. Crops are growing.
Sky’s huge. Iran is exploding.
Real things
matter.

Guts all over the road.
Girls find something worse than the beetle
to be unhappy about.

#

Joy and Delight—
Chayo gets me to play her “Horror Hop” monster
music CD—big kids collapse in profound
soul-pain—it’s so uncool, man! It’s so, like,
not Nine Inch Nails or the Killers, dude!
Suddenly, the dull acerbic tones of tsst-tsst-
tsst-tsst twin earbuds cranking emo &
industrial hiss from the middle seats.
Chayo & me, in shades,
car-dancing.
Wifey, reading paper,
maintains a frozen
smile.

#

Sign said:
JESUS IS RISEN.
Cinderella thought it said:
JESUS IS GREEN.
She’s such a democrat.

#

C driving. D’oh! I stick my pen
In my shoe, then uncross my legs
and cry, “Where’d my pen go!”

#

Sometimes, being myopic is cool—
road detritus by the highway
looks for an instant
like a giant
tarantula
from a 50s monster movie.
Must be the influence
Of “Horror Hop.”

#

Even doing industrial driving,
1,000 miles a day, something
excellent: a Pony Express
station down in the woods—
I meditate upon it and our
western history…
very briefly.

#

4 cows in a field
beside 2 pigs
homegirls grazing.
#

Sleepy trucker
turns I-80
into a long embroidery
of lazy S’s.

#

Collapsed cabins.
All those ghosts
have hunched shoulders.

#

Vultures
circling
by the road, waiting
for me to give up
my soul,
but Cage The
Elephant are on the radio
& my pen’s still full
& I think
I won’t die yet.

Wastelander Prologue

2009-07-01T15:26:00.002-05:00

I was ripping out the voluminous weeds that have overwhelmed my garden since I went on the cataclysmic book tour '09 edition. My head's still spinning--literayyly. I had a harsh attack of vertigo that comes and goes since the awful/wonderful events on the road. (See postings, below.) But I was out there in my Border Angels shirt with Chayo, our youngest, otherwise known as Sheena Of The Jungle. We were thrilled to find an albino millipede. That felt like some kind of good omen.

Well, you long-time victims, er, readers, of this blog are familiar with the wastelanders. I know lots of new people are looking in on us now. So a brief word of explanation.

I wanted to come up with a form of writing--not writing but sketching--that was agile and flexible and impressionistic. I wanted a form that would lend intself to the wanderings of soul and mind, as well as to the wanderings of body and event. Had to be fast, you see. And fun. Otherwise, really, why do it? I wanted to inject Big Fun into my writing/being! Recess! Everybody--hit the monkeybars!

This style started to assert itself. Looks like poetry, but it is not poetry. Though there are some poems in it, even haiku. It looks like Kerouac's sketches, but it isn't like them. Maybe a little like Thomas Wolfe's old notebooks, but more lyrical. Maybe like Joe Ely's wonderful book, Bonfire of Roadmaps, but more intuitive. Basically, all me, for better or worse. My thoughts, my eyes, my spirit. I like to see how things start to create themes in the real world, how images surface and shadows oif plots and stories seem to connect pine trees or aspens, say, 4000 miles away from each other.

Certain readers take offense when I talk about FAMOUS PEOPLE, as if their fame is something that I am using to boost myself. Perhaps, if you take these sightings as WTF moments, you will enjoy them. Seeing a famous guy is like seeing a bear. Besides, these are the folks I work with now. My...colleagues. Think of them as cafeteria ladies and hotel doormen. Or bears.

Finally, the term "wastelander" is a synonym for "writer" and comes from the fabulously out-of-date book, Dictionary of Modern American Synonyms by Homer Hogan. I have taken it as my own, and will put it on ball caps, t-shirts and lit journals till I drop.

And on these scribbles.

So watch for it. I'll be posting part one of the new series here soon. You can read older ones in the archive of this blog...until I put 'em in book form!

Wandering time 4ever, wish U were here, I remain
Yrs., Luigi

How I Spent My Summer Vacation II: The Sequel

2009-06-15T14:29:00.002-05:00

Kathi and Sam were so funny, and the wedding was warm and full of laughter and love.

But here's where you get fooled by all the joy and cake. We were both so tired we were thinking only of home. Dragging through the last event. Delighted that all reviews (barring Kirkus and a few bloggers) had been amazingly positive. So. I had a mid-day interview with the books editor at the SF Chronicle.

Wandered down there to the Yerba Buena Gardens. He set up his tape recoredr and told me he'd seen the reviw of my book. I smiled and went into my prepared pre-paid Humble Author mode, when he stopped me. "It's not good news for you," he said. Zim-zam and bam! Tour ends on an uncomfortable note--his reviewer hates my book because I "trivialize" the border. ha ha! Joke's on me, y'all! So I thanked him (?) and staggered off.

San Francisco tried to ameliorate the let-down as only SF can. The next day, we were treated to a 40 person totally nude bicycle parade. Yes, indeed. Purdy nude, my friends. Like, shaved nude. And, as I pointed out to my next audience, a few of the gents were rising to the occasion.

OK. Here's how love wins out, though. My last gig in SF and for the tour was the loegendary Writers With Drinks. At the Make-Out Lounge in the Mission District. Perhaps not the perfect fit for me, since I barely drink. But I thought it would at least be joyous.

Yes. Yes. Joy. Yes.

Our hostess was the hilarious and brilliant trans-gendered Charlie. When people wanted pictures of us together, we told them they were our senior prom pix. I did the greatest reading in the long history of readings. Ever. Nobody can tell me different. And, when I told the audience about my forthcoming drubbing in the paper, they raised their glasses in a very loud toast: "Fuck you, San Francisco Chronicle!"

How can you not be thankful?

Wow. I can't even tell you more. It was like that. Up and down. Terrible, then exploding with light and love in ways I would only sound silly or pompous to share with you. Now, coffee. Poems. Gardening. Exercise.

And into the sacred Rockies for some peace and...oh yeah, more autographs.

Thank you from both of us. We love you all. We love you, Charlie.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, L & C

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2009-06-15T13:44:00.001-05:00

"I retire at the end of every tour. When I'm on the road, I'm gritting my teeth and putting up with hotels and sleep deprivation and upset tummy. But when I'm off the road, the road suddenly sounds like a magical idea again...It's just the nature of the beast." Eric Clapton

Not that I'm Eric Clapton. No. I am Atomiko.

Got in last night at the end of the most tiring, vexing, horrible, wonderful successful book tour I've ever experienced. Readers who come here or follow Cinderella and me on Twitter know the story. I am, frankly, too tired and too charred to tell you everything. And I developed vertigo somewhere on the road, so this keyboard is lazily spinning through space as I try to write to you. But I'll give it a bit of a go. Won't have much time--going down to Chi tomorrow for my 10,000th NPR show in the morning; doctor on Wed. to make sure I have thwarted diabetes with my superhuman physique and workout regimen; then, to make sure the life extends for another week, we go to our trainer on Thursday. Not the optimum week as far a peace and quiet go, especially because we have to drive out of here for Aspen on Friday. Poor Cinderella. After all that, she will have to return to Seattle to continue to deal with the ghastly mom-death details.

Didn't Joe Walsh sing, "I can't complain but sometimes I still do"?

Life's been good to me so far...

All right. Let's see here. One terrible sad death. One funeral. Two weddings. Two receptions. Eight (?) radio shows. Chicago, Kankakee, Naperville, Phoenix/Tempe, Philadelphia, NYC, POrtland, Seattle, San Diego, Pasadena, San Francisco, Berkeley, Menlo Park, Capitola, Napa. Sorry, Washington, DC. Sorry, Printers Row, Chicago. And sorry, Elliott Bay Books in Seattle. We did what we could. Most days had three to four events--interviews, book signings, radio shows, readings at night. By the end of the month, we were down to our last bath-tub washed clean underpants. For sale on E-Bay! No, no. Gad. Just kidding.

For fans who get mad when I mention famous types, I will say that we met a lot of really wonderful writers. Heroes and new friends. Michael Connelly was a true gent. Saw lots of beloved old pals, too. Sherman Alexie and his wife Diane were bright lights at BEA for us--big hugs and love in da house. Spied on James Patterson and James Ellroy. And that "View" lady. It's like bird-watching. Saw China Mieville across the room because he's seven feet tall and rises like an alabaster tower of awesomeness. Were lucky enough to see Amanda Palmer sing, and Neil Gaiman lurking like Lestat in the shadows. Etc. Just so you know. Much fun available to you on book tour.

F'r example, let us examine the end of tour--San Fran Effin' Cisco. We were in rought, sad shapr, I'll admit. The funeral for grandma had been devastating, but sweet. I know Cinderella is going to piost a guest-blog here to try to answer the meny, many, many of you who wrote and tweeted us with such kindness and soul. It made us cry. Often.

What you don't always get in this career is a sense of family from your publishing house. Little, Brown and Hachette were, in every way, unfailingly generous and loving with us. From helping us with travel, to arranginmg for flowers to be delivered to us, to picking up our funeral hotel bill. They kept in contact with us all through that bad epoch. And Geoff Shandler offered me an out at any point in the tour. But WE REFUSED TO QUIT! No way, man. No. Not stopping. Tour discipline dictates that we finish. Besdies, poor grandma was so excited about Into the Beautiful North. Imagine how sad she would have been to destroy the tour. So we marched on. March or Die!

But Geoff offered to let me come home right to the last.

We got to SF after a brutal morning. Had to get up at 4:00 to catch a 6:30 flight. Uh-huh. You who know me know that was the time I used to go to bed. You don't go on book tour to sleep. Our charming escort, Alexandra (Alex! we love you!) picked us up in her 100 foot long Benz and started the Urrea marathon, going for hours anbd hours and miles and miles, from book store to radio station to book store to church hall to0 radio station to book store in every imaginable direction. I can't tell you where we went because I don't remember.

We stayed at my beloved Hotel Monaco. I have mentioned the Monaco in past blogs. I always stay there. You find The Kings of Leon or Chrissie Hynde in the lobby. But the staff knows your name, the rooms are really sweet, they have leopard-spot robes and naughty lingerie in the closets. A chihuahua mans the night desk and wags at you. And, if you're lonesome, they bring you a bowl with a goldfish. Stay there! The French restaurant next door is also excellent, and when the Mexican waiters figured out I was from Tijuana, they kept giving us extra goodies. We damaged ourselves with the food there. (Oh no--more treadmill, more sit-ups.)

In the middle of the occupation, we attended the delightful wedding of our pals Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry. You lit fans might recognize them from The Rock Bottom Remainders.

Don't Squander Your Love

2009-06-02T22:06:00.003-05:00

I'm checking in with you, Dear Reader and Friend, from the middle of book tour. It has been a magnificent run so far, many cities and many hundreds of new amigos. But the tour is broken right now, and so are we.

It is Tuesday as I write this. On Sunday night, Cinderella's mother died. They were shocking her heart at her house as we talked to the terrified siblings on the cell phone. How perverse is life? We were in NYC's Hotel Warwick, Elvis's favorite hotel, and the hiding place of the Beatles. Living large. BEA had ended, and I had met heroes and critics and old friends--got to give big love to Sherman Alexie and his wife Diane. A wild little show at the KGB Bar. Everything you could hope for after five cities, seven or eight signings, four radio shows and even a wedding. With a couple of weeks to go. And...death.

It will never leave my mind that I spoke with "Grandma" on Friday as we trained from Philly to NY. She was giddy with the book and the tour. She had been calling all the book stores in Seattle to order the book so it would be all over town. She even figured out Twitter and this blog. If you look in the last posting's comments section, you'll see her first--and last ever-- comment.

My publisher has been so kind and generous to us. I still can't believe how good they have been to us. They got us home yesterday to get the kids, and they have helped us get airline tickets to Seattle for the awfulness. Ironically, Cinderella and I would have been there by Thursday anyway. Just a few days. But you don't always get a few days.

So events have been cancelled, and I apologize if you were looking for me out there. I know she would have wanted me to keep going, and she wouold have been mortified that her death blew this silly tour apart. So I'm going to still do selected things, in her honor. Believe it or not, we are flying to Portland tomorrow and I will do my appearance at Powell's. The publisher and the store to a lesser extent are counting on me. After the signing, we drive to Seattle. Funeral home details, and sadly no Elliott Bay Books noon appearance. But I will honor the University Bookstore gig at UW. The weekend is for the funeral--they want me to do the eulogy. I guess that's the curse of being the family writer.

We'll send the kids home Sunday and stagger on to California to honor all those events. Won't get home again till the 14th or so of June.

There are no guarantees, it's true.

We have been love-bombed by so many people, I can't even start to thank them all. Bloggers and critics, writers and Twitterers, students and agents--everyone. Thank you. We're doing our best. We're going to get through. But I'm telling you, if you love somebody, tell them now. If you're mad at them, get over it. If you miss them, write them or call them. Tomorrow might not come around in time. Love them now.

Don't squander your love.

L

So Long, See You Tomorrow

2009-05-19T12:21:00.002-05:00

Today is the official launch date of the book. We'll see what happens. You never know.

Thanks, everybody, for writing to us. Soon, the Beautiful North artcards will be sailing to you. I'll try to fill the requests as long as I can, so drop me a line w/ your address. As always, the Urrealists promise not to sell your data to spammers, porn sites, or male enhancement marketers.

We are leaving for Kankakee. Hope to see some of you there, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Oh no--I won't see who wins American Idol! (Go, Adam.) Then back here for Anderson's Books in Naperville Thursday. After that--crack of dawn--Denver. See some of you at The Tattered Cover on Tudesday next week.

The schedule should be posted here on the new website. Wish we could all go together. Maybe for the paperback tour--we'll get an old Greyhound bus and take 40 pals with us! Everybody blogging and Twittering.

I'll be looking for you....

Swag! Merch! Goodies!

2009-05-16T14:08:00.003-05:00

Pssst! You wanna get a present from us? Send us your mail (street address) and we'll ship you a teeny tiny bit of Into the Beautiful North memorabilia. The Twitter folks are already on it.

Hit "contact," above, send me an email w/ your data. I promise not to sell it to a porn spammer.

Here Comes the Flood

2009-05-16T11:34:00.003-05:00

It's almost quiet around here this morning. Cinderella's off getting her Book Tour Hair done. I dreamed last night I dyed my hair black--Adam Lambert Fever? Oh, maybe the book tour jitters. I've put myself through book tour boot-camp with America's Top Personal Trainer, Nicki Anderson (TM, Patent Pending). My quads and my lats and my blatz and my shats are all stronger now.

And we've been preparing some merch and swag for fans--yes, there are copies of "The Magnificent Seven" for raffle. Yes, we are making a big stack of "Nayeli and Tacho's Drive-Time Playlist" of all the favorite songs of Tres Camarones and the main characters in the book. Yes, we have hand-fans made (if you've been in a tropical Mexican moviehouse, you'll recall these cardboard fans) with the logo of Tacho's "La Mano Caida" restaurant and internet cafe. We're having 500 post-cards made to give away and/or mail to fans. Thinkin' about t-shirts.

We're arranging for the tour to be a Twitter-fest: I'm hoping Cinderella and whatever Twitteroos present will keep up a running record of each gig--and we hope to use the twits to run some of the raffles. (It's the First Inaugural Tweet-Up Tour, for those of you who follow: never tried before. My small addition to the Twit alternative history being brought into the world 140 characters at a time.) Twitta Hatas don't "get it," but I always tell long-time fans of the blogs here that Twitter is a continuation of "The Wastelander's Notebooks," one of the most popular features of this website. I can't think of a better, more immediate way to peek into a writer's mind/soul/lunchbox. So, I guess, it's a way for us to whisper secrets, enjoy pillow-talk, laugh, share notebooks and journals. It's the phone call at midnight I might have made to you when we were 16--before we were respectable and married and too sleepy to play Leonard Cohen and Shawn Phillips songs over the phone.

A Tweet-Up is when Twitter folks meet face-to-face. I'm hoping to have at least one meet us at each gig. I also hope readers of this blog will come--a Blog-Up? Ugh... That sounds like stomach flu. "Mom! Chayo just blogged-up!" Anyway, if you want to follow the scribbles and the jottings, you can always see it all: Twitter.com/Urrealism. Join us!

I will "Wasteland" the trip as best I can on here, too. We'll have a teeny tiny notebook computer w/ us.

So. I'm not ready, but I never am. The clock runs out and we'll have to leave, ready or not. As the saying goes, "No choice, no problem."

So far, Into the Beautiful North has gotten generous, sometimes ecstatic, reviews. Except for Kirkus reviews--which often ahs the same guy review my books. Anonymously. It's easy to drygulch a cowboy when you have a mask over your face! I would take the review to heart and mend my bad-writer ways, except the review is full of crap. I do listen--though paying too much attention to reviews good or bad will drive you crazy.

One of my Twitter pals calls the book Into the Tweetiful North. Ha ha ha! Or, as my Mexican readers say it: Ja, ja, ja!

First stop: Kankakee, Illinois. May 19/20. Why? Because the book ends in Kankakee, and we have a long sweet history with that fine town. (I wrote a NY Times piece about them once.)

May 21: Anderson's Books in Naperville, IL. Home town, locals coming. We'll adjourn to a pub afterwards so I can say hey.

The next day, we leave for Denver. The Holy Rocky Mountains! Home of my Eternal Soul! The Bella Luna gang is having a wedding! And afterwards, The Tattered Cover. May 26, 7:30. B there or B square.

Tempe, AZ the next day...and on and on. Updates here.

I'll be looking for you.

Hope you win the raffle.

XXX, OOO, XXX
Ludwig Aethelbert Urias

Review

2009-05-09T10:30:00.002-05:00

Into the Beautiful North got a nice review in the Chicago Tribune this morning. Saw it before I had coffee--didn't need coffee anymore. The reviewer (the thoughtful Alan Cheuse) wants a sequel. Hmm. I like it. Good idea, Alan.

Anyway, here's the tiny URL, if you're interested:

http://bit.ly/M4LaS