The summer of 1952, Lawton, Oklahoma...Eight-year-old Glory has a father who's taken out a $50,000 accidental death insurance policy on her-now he's spending the summer trying to collect.In his first attempt, he throws Glory to the snakes, but a giant alligator snapping turtle scares the snakes away.Glory writes in her diary: Well, Powwow Pete drove us home to talk to Mom, but we didn't get very far. Mom thinks I just have a wild imagination. At least Powwow Pete believes me. I think it was the turtle that killed it for Mom."How could there be a turtle that big?" she scoffed. They talked some more and Powwow Pete got kind of mad and got up to leave.This was one of those times when a kid thinks they're talking about a turtle, but the grown-ups are really talking about something else entirely. In this case, I think Powwow Pete was accusing Mom of still loving my dad, but he never said that, he just kept talking about the turtle. Mom was doing the same thing: talking about the turtle but meaning that she didn't want to get messed up with some guy who was a pathological liar.As Brown As I Want: The Indianhead Diaries was a 2004 Oklahoma Book Awards finalist and a first place fiction winner at the Surrey conference in 1999.
Hello! Thank you for looking at my page. I'm a part-Hispanic writer who grew up listening to stories in my grandmother's living room. Everyone in my family was a wonderful story-teller. If only they had written them down!
My first three novels, my Turtle Trilogy, were written in honor of this warm, close family that wasn't afraid to work hard and never forgot to laugh. I call the books fictional autobiographies, although they are usually placed in the fiction section. I also have a Kindle book, Bears in the Hibiscus, a humorous romance, and a mixed genre book, Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories. My A Three-Turtle Summer novel won the Bold Media Fiction Award in 2002. As Brown As I Want: The Indianhead Diaries, was a finalist in the 2004 Oklahoma Book Awards, and a first place winner for fiction in the 1999 Surrey (Canada) Writers' Conference contest.
I love to read, and have many fond memories of the Carnegie Library in Lawton, my hometown. One of the perks of writing is that I can explore my interests in marine biology, anthropology, and archaeology and call it research!
Although I was born and raised in Oklahoma, I now live in Washington State with my husband. Our daughter and her family live close by. Oh, the stories we tell in our living rooms!
Recently, Kindle has expanded to the UK and Germany. I'd like to welcome all of you and I hope you'll enjoy your Kindle! I love mine!
