Blog Archives
Define Identity
In Valtoha, you ask readers to join you on a journey from Singapore to Valtoha as you examine your family’s history beginning with your late grandfather. What inspired you to share your family history with readers?
When I went in search of my grandfather’s village, I did not intend to turn the adventure into an actual book. However, after the experience, I felt it was an amazing story in itself and that people would want to hear about it. I shared the experience with some close friends and they championed the idea of turning it into a book. Then the next questions were: how I was going to stylise the entire account and what parallels did my grandfather share with me? With these starting points, I began to craft the text that is now VALTOHA. On some levels, this may have been a personal project and on other levels, it was meant to give a voice to a seemingly insignificant person who actually is something of an important figure of subaltern history.
How long did it take you to research and put together your family’s history and write Valtoha?
I began writing the bulk of it while I was still travelling around India, so over the course of a month or so. That was just the first draft of the text we have now. Over the next three months, I began asking for information from the various sources and speaking to Dr. Kirpal Singh about the foreword of the text. Unearthing some information was easier than others but I think good fortune did play a huge part in the way some of the information fell into my lap.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from your story?
An enjoyable tale and nothing more because that is all it really is, I think? I know questions will inevitably be raised about identity, belonging and assimilation, as always with stories of transmigration. However, the truth is that these things really don’t matter. Most of us tend to spend a large portion of our lives trying to define identity for ourselves. The truth is that once we have a sense of the answer, we don’t really know what to do with it. Yes, I’m a third-generation Indian immigrant to Singapore but so what? My wife is Mexican, and I can’t relate to most things Indian or Singaporean. So what? The identity that I’ve constructed for myself doesn’t matter at all as much as the experiences that I have been through. Therefore, the search for identity is an absolute utter waste of time. I am a storyteller, and all this text is bringing to readers is just a story.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I am currently working on a speculative poetry collection about music and sound with American poet, Garrett Carroll that should be out sometime in 2025. Ikhṓr, my art/poetry collaboration with Irish artist Shane Reilly, will be released at the end of October this year. Also, at some point in 2025, I will be releasing Shadows with Sauroctonos Publishing. This is a grimoire about Southeast Asian supernatural entities and the dark magic used to invoke, banish and protect against them.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
My Own Family History Firsthand
Cuba, Your Children Cry shares your memories about growing up as a first-generation American of Cuban parents and your desire to experience Cuba for yourself. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I grew up with my parents having a love-hate relationship with Cuba. I did not understand why. The title came from my mom. My siblings would be at school, and I would be home with my mom. Under her breath, she would always say, Cuba, your children cry! And I used to think, why are there crying children in Cuba? I must have been 4/5 years old. We were a working-class family, so family dinners were a rare occurrence, and discussion of my parents’ time in Cuba was rare.
In my forties, I did quite a bit of traveling; I have traveled to over 100 countries. I had been to China and Russia but not Cuba. When the Obama administration started to open travel to Cuba, that is when I thought I should go to Cuba and close this family history circle. My spouse started working on his family history on ancestry.com and randomly asked me to do it too. At this point, I decided to travel to Cuba to discover my own family history firsthand. My parents were getting older, and none of my siblings had any information about my parents’ life in Cuba. On my first trip, I went alone; my parents refused to go; I journaled every day, and when I returned home, I made a photo book and included my journals, and gifted it to my family, thinking no one would ever go back to Cuba. My friend Laurin, who accompanied me on my first trip, also received the photo book, and she suggested I write a book. Brushing that suggestion to the side, I never thought of it again. My parents said they would go to Cuba when Castro died. When that happened, I started to plan our trip.
Two years later, I took my parents to Cuba and audio recorded their stories and journaled every day. When I returned, I completed another photo book and gifted it to my family. Laurin, who came with me on my first trip, asked me for a copy and again suggested I write a book. I did not think anyone would be interested in my book, so I said I would think about it. Then the pandemic hit, and my 50th birthday was right around the corner. And so, I thought, it would be cool to release a book on my 50th birthday. And the rest is history. In the process, I learned that my story resonated not only with Cuban refugees but also with anyone who was a refugee from different countries. It was important to me to discover my family history; writing the book was so cathartic, and in turn, it was important to me to tell this story of survival and tenacity.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
The idea that love can be stronger than anything and it can be lasting. That being ousted from your country is probably one of the most challenging things that can happen to anyone, but perseverance and determination will get you through. That being different, having a different skin tone, and having an accent is ok. That even when English is your second language, you can still write a book!
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
The hardest thing to write about was interviewing my parents about their last days in Cuba. Then taking that information and putting it into words that told that story exactly as it happened. It took me a month to put it all into the correct words. I couldn’t imagine what my parents were feeling at that time. I remember taking pictures of them in front of their last homes before they left for the airport, not knowing about their future. It was such a sad moment. It was very difficult to get through that part of the book.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from your story?
I hope it encourages folks to investigate their own family history, travel to uncomfortable places, and have uncomfortable conversations. It will be worth every second and penny spent to complete their family puzzle.
Author Links: Goodreads | Amazon
It began when I was browsing through my parents’ vintage photographs of a free Cuba in the 1940s and 50s at my home in Hialeah, Florida. I learned everything about Cuba from them, but I had never visited the beloved island only ninety miles from Key West, Florida. They told tales of romantic nights on the streets of Havana, an island where Cuban music escaped from small cafes and filled the streets with people dancing and laughing. I was learning the lingo recognized only by fellow Cubans.
Political strife upended the Cuba of my parents’ childhood and ultimately prevented travel back to the island. It was a conflict so intense that thousands risked their lives to escape through shark-infested waters on man-made rafts to Miami, or anywhere for that matter, to reach land and claim political asylum.
Living this juxtaposition―love for the island and devastation at the collapse of a once beautiful society―was heart-wrenching. I felt as if I was being raised in a Cuban bubble while also being exposed to the elements of unfamiliar American traditions. A contradiction of sorts. For my entire life I craved a better understanding of where I came from, the details of how my parents fled Cuba and, most importantly, who I am.
I yearned to experience first-hand the Cuba of my parents’ memories, to stroll the Malecon, to immerse myself in the sights and sounds of that tropical paradise. After forty-six years of not knowing, I set out to learn the stories of the Iglesias family and to see the island through the tear-filled eyes of my parents. And finally, I accomplished that mission.
Mistaken Judgments and Rash Conclusions
Phyllis A. Still Author Interview
Defiance on Indian Creek is an enthralling story that follows a smart and courageous young girl on the eve of the Revolutionary war. What was the inspiration for the setup to this young adult novel?
I discovered the real Mary Shirley in a box of family genealogy documents I received from my uncle. As I researched an incident that took place when she was an eighteen-year-old mother of a two-year-old son, I knew her story had to be told. I realized Mary had to acquire tenacity and survival skills well before this event and, therefore,Defiance on Indian Creek, begins the series right before her thirteenth birthday on Indian Creek in now, Monroe County, West Virginia.
Defiance on Indian Creek takes a quiet frontier family and brings them to the forefront against an increasingly dangerous time in history. What research did you do to maintain the accuracy of that moment in history?
My online research of New River history revealed names, places, and leads to additional information. I printed articles, slid them into plastic coversheets, and placed them into large three-ring binders with dividers. I even used calendars. These calendars were marked with historic events of the time and place, along with the fictional plot line. Yes, I’m OCD, and the day I discovered Scrivener was a happy day.
I felt that the relationship between Mary and her father was deep and intriguing. What was the inspiration for their relationship and how did it develop as you wrote?
The close bond between Mary and her papa came naturally for me. I was blessed to have a “Daddy’s girl” bond with my own father. I plotted the story to include the mistaken judgments and rash conclusions all teen girls experience. Mary’s disbelief in her papa’s actions fueled her defiance. I raised three close-in-age daughters to adulthood and experienced these clashes. Most teens really do love their parents but don’t let on.
Defiance on Indian Creek is book one in the Dangerous Loyalties series. Where does book two take readers and when will it be available?
Mary’s recent emotional trauma worsens when the family flees Indian Creek ahead of angry men who are seeking Papa’s life. But they’re not taking Daniel Boone’s trail to Kentucky territory. They’re traversing the old hunter’s path to the rough-manned, frontier forts along the Clinch River—until they cross the Cumberland Gap—then they’re at the mercy of God to Fort Boonesborough. I’m hoping for a summer 2017 release date for book two.
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“Emotionally riveting adventure, survival, and precarious family relationships are weaved into this teen historical about Mary Shirley–a brave, tenacious thirteen-year-old girl who lives on the remote frontier of West Virginia in 1775 at the onset of the American Revolutionary War.
Cooped up in a dimly lighted cabin with her seven siblings and Momma, Mary dreams of a peaceful future with friends and suitors. But she’s worried about her family’s survival.
When Papa returns home with news that the Indians have agreed to stay away from the Western settlements, Mary breathes a sigh of relief. But when he speaks of pending revolutionary war against Britain, declares his loyalty to King George III, and plans to move to Kentucky territory, Mary is confused and afraid.
She discovers mysterious surveys with riddles and a hidden box in the barn that contains secret documents. When she witnesses Papa betray a patriot neighbor at a nearby fort and later reads a disturbing letter that implicates him as a traitorous spy, Mary is ashamed of him. He is endangering the family, and she must find a way to change his mind. Her emotional struggles lead to lost trust and acts of defiance.
When Papa returns deathly ill from a survey job and asks Mary to deliver a lifesaving dispatch, she balks. Is loyalty to Papa more important than loyalty to the revolutionary cause? Lives are in danger no matter what choice she makes.”
LITERARY TITAN 