 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
Back to Featured Interviews >> MEET PAT SANTANA
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
 |
| Pat Santana |
Read, read, read. I was drawn to the wonderful and sad lives of others. After reading DIARY OF ANNE FRANK when I was eleven years old, I decided to begin writing in a diary, feeling Anne was my kindred spirit. As an adolescent, I felt that since nobody in the world could possibly understand me --and least of all my old fashion, Mexican immigrant parents--I must write down my every feeling and confusion about the world around me. And write I did. I have tomes of diaries--cloth-covered notebooks I made myself, writing on 8 1/2 x 11" college-ruled line paper. Writing was my way of trying to bring sense and order to the chaos and confusion in my soul.
When you were a child did you ever have moments when you decided that you were going to be a writer when you grew up?
I knew it when I was fourteen. It was about that time that I clearly understood how cathartic and powerful words could be. To question, to instruct, to entertain. Important reasons for writing.
Have any of your books earned special recognition?
My first novel MOTORCYCLE RIDE ON THE SEA OF TRANQUILLITY, besides being part of the California Readers Collection, was chosen by the Young Adult Division in the American Library Association as a Best Book for 2003.
Have any of your fiction stories been about real people or events?
Yes, most of my fiction is what my daughter refers to as "autobiographical fiction." My family and friends--their stories, their personalities--inspire me to write. People are so marvelously and mysteriously complex.
Do you write every day and do you have set hours?
Since I am a full time teacher, I write most heavily on weekends, summer and winter break. Oftentimes I come home from work exhausted and not in the mood to take on an evening project, but I will at least turn on the computer and say hello to my characters. In doing so, I find myself editing this or that paragraph or scene. It may be for just 30 minutes, but at least I feel I have made daily contact with my characters. It makes me feel a little less guilty this saying 'goodnight' to them.
When is your next book going to be in book stores?
GHOSTS OF EL GRULLO, which is a sequel to MOTORCYCLE RIDE, will be out early next spring 2008. In this new story, we follow Yolanda into college and important events that shape her passage into womanhood.