Images that Release Words
Writer’s block is so widespread that it’s a common theme in movies and fiction. Over the past year, I’ve seen what used to be a steady stream of new ideas and work reduce to a trickle. Like many artists, this is due to personal transitions that have taken much of my focus from my work.…
Writing with Eyes Wide Open
Writer’s block: it’s a Hollywood cliché to see a writer pining after ideas, when inspiration suddenly jumps out beside them. A murder happens next door or a love interest enters their life, flooding them with ideas. In real life though, writer’s block is more nuanced and harder to cut through. Sometimes the cause is obvious:…
My Hispanic Heritage
October is Latinx Heritage Month in Canada. Reflecting on my Latin American heritage brings both nostalgic joy and a sting of bitterness. 2021 marks a decade since I set foot in Venezuela, a country that shows no progress towards peace or the oil-fueled prosperity that made it so famous in the 20th century. Instead, we…
2020: Creative Reconstruction
The year of the pandemic has shattered many things: it’s left millions without work or precariously employed, challenged our mental health and forced us to come to terms with many subjects that we generally avoid, like the impact that environmental destruction and polarized politics have on the lives of millions around the world. Having to…
Flash Fiction
What color would you give to loss, to saying goodbye perhaps never to meet again? For many Venezuelans, those colors are orange, green, blue and black. These are the colors of the mosaic by local artist Carlos Cruz Diez, which graces the floors and feature walls in the Departures Hall of Simon Bolívar Airport, which…
The Spirits of Venezuela
October 12th is a day of remembrance in Venezuela, as we look back to the arrival of the Spaniards, and the subsequent slave trade, which brought Africans to labor on our lands. It’s a day to celebrate the culture that has resulted from the mix of those people, and also to reflect on the injustices…
Hipanic Heritage Month
For Hispanic Heritage month, I’ve been reflecting on how hard it was for me to find a voice like mine- a female voice – in Latin literature when I was growing up. Latin America has had highly gifted writers, and I devoured Magical Realism books, which felt so intimate and familiar to me. Reading 100…
Breathing Life into Words
Writing as an act of conception- that was my take-away when I read Jorge Luis Borges’s short story ‘Circular Ruins.’ Tackling classics isn’t always easy for a contemporary reader. Even though I mostly read 19th and early 20th century books early on, I’m hooked on modern writers and their easy prose, gripping plots and characters…
The Ghosts that Brought us Together
How do keep a family together when your country is tearing you apart? In Venezuela during the Chavez-Maduro rule, increased political conflict has separated friends and families. As the economic and political situation became more tumultuous, tales of ghosts and spirits kept us together. These stories – from a child ghost at our grandparents’ home…
My Second Soul
“To speak a second language is to have a second soul,” Charlemagne said. Each language has unique expressions and images that we can use to express ourselves, to see the world in a new way. At the age of six I started to learn English, after starting classes in an American school in Holland. I…
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My Writing Story 