My Honest, New Writing Schedule

10/23/2016

My morning Tweet: Writing Schedule: Get up at 6a.m. or earlier. Word vomit. If the kids get up, send them to Aaron. Lock the bedroom door 20 more minutes.

Locking the door was really important but so hard with my daughter knocking on the door shouting, "Milk, milk!" Yes, the 18-month old shouts commands.

I also plan on writing during those strange gaps when I have the laptop. 1 hour max a day. Anything else will drive me crazy or force me to lose sleep.

The union work has kept me really busy and midterm grades are due, but since I have cast aside the dream of translating all my own words, this anthology should get done quicker.

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 Roque Dalton. 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, summer 2018. 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 almost ten years, and have a fabulous eight-year-old who makes my life phenomenal: He too is starting to write short stories. I had a second baby, Simona (3), 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. He also books my readings.

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