Emailed the Editor

10/23/2016

I contacted the editor. He is a personal friend of mine who is really outstanding at giving feedback. Plus, I think he's an awesome human being and will be objective without being an asshole.

However, today, he is so busy with work and most likely hung over from the Cubs victory, that he hasn't responded. (I noticed few people are on FB right now; they all have a love for the Cubs in common and most of them, a refined palette for beer. Go Cubs!)

He last told me to send it to him when I was finished.

Technically, I am finished. Maybe a fresh look at "Wolf Trek" will offer some insight into the ending. It's the only story that feels like a thorn in my brain.

You know when you write and are satisfied with a piece. That one perpetually nags at me.

We will see what he says because I sent a financial offer. Not a very large one. In fact, I don't even know how much a professional editor would charge. I supposes when you go through a press you don't have to worry about this cost, which is why one would go through a press.

I have worked with professional editors before, and they were great, but I didn't have to do anything else but make changes to the manuscript.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Dr. Jesú Estrada,
Chicago, IL

I grew up on the outskirts of Yuma, AZ, close to the Cocopah reservation. Because I was ever-bored, I became an avid reader of Spanish comic books and anything in English. Then I moved onto Steinbeck and Stephen King and now read international authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Atwood, and Marouf. I also read a lot of coming of age fiction.

I have been writing stories in both Spanish and English since I was six years old. My fiction and poetry focus on working class issues, primarily about laborers in the Southwest. I also write non-serious fiction, like zombie fiction (I was into it before it got popular with the Walking Dead series, which I love) and dabble in magical realism with a fusion of cuentos and folklore.

I have a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Washington State University, a Masters Degree in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelors of Arts from Northern Arizona University. I have also taught creative writing, and will do so, spring 2017. Currently, I live in Chicago and teach full-time at Harold Washington College to an amazing student population.

More about me. I am happily married, been so for over eight years, and have a fabulous seven-year-old who makes my life phenomenal: He too is starting to write short stories. I recently had a second baby, Simona, which put a temporary set-back on the publication of my first book, but made my life infinitely more wonderful. My husband is also incredibly supportive, and I have enlisted him to market whatever I do that is worth marketing.

That damned itch just won't let me be, so I'm back to my original love of words.