“On behalf of the Northern California Book Reviewers (NCBR), I am delighted to tell you that Border Town: Crossing the Line has been nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Children’s Literature (Middle Grades/YA) as one of the best works by a northern California author published in 2012. Congratulations!”

You could not believe my excitement. Nominated for a book award–my first! What a honor. I admit that I didn’t think I’d win an award–not in my life time. I kinda had this weird fantasy that I would be recognized for my brilliant wit and social commentary after my death. A couple weeks later I learned Border Town was also nominated for the Latino Book Awards. Ahhh! I was on a roll. 

Fast forward to the awards ceremony…my category was called out. I invited my biggest fans: my mom, step dad, and little sister Suni. The nominees were invited to stand on the stage:

Middle Grade/Young Adult
Border Town: Crossing the Line, Malín Alegría, Scholastic (age 12 and up)
The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook, Joanne Rocklin, Amulet Books (Middle Grade)
“Who Could That Be at This Hour”: All the Wrong Questions, Lemony Snicket, illustrations by Seth, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (age 8 and up, Grades 4-7) 

The winner was Lemony Snicket. I was hoping to meet the guy. I’m a huge fan. :) It was so cool to be nominated with him. Maybe next time.

Now, it’s back to my hot pink laptop. I’m working on a new piece. Well, it’s actually an old piece that was partly inspired by youth I’ve met while on the author circuit and my own experiences as a teacher in San Francisco. It’ll be my first novel that takes place in my hometown.

The idea: A young 12-year old girl comes home to find her mother missing. Soon she learns that there was an ICE raid at her mother’s job. Fearing the worse, the girl tries desperately to locate her mother while staying under the radar of her school teachers, the landlord, and social worker. Things take a turn for the worse when she must flee her home and with no place to go, she sneaks into her middle school. Will she get caught? Will she be turned over to social services? What will happen to her mother? Stay tuned.

Here’s a picture of me with the famous Chicano/Tejano playwright Rupert Reyes. We presented on “What Describes the Mind and Heart of Latinos.”

There was a great youth panel that also reflected on their experiences and how they achieved academic success.

1 day–I was really surprised by the number of Latinos living in Georgia and deeply moved by the commitment and support for Latino students and their families from the Buford school district, teachers, and the community. But there were more surprises in store for me. When I got to the school I learned, 3 hours before my presentation, that my audience would be all Spanish speaking. Yikes!

I’ve never done ”Estrella’s Quinceañera” all in Spanish. The book is written in Spanglish…and I’m not a native speakers! But when I heard that the Superintendent was going to open the event with a Spanish welcome address (fyi: he doesn’t speak Spanish), I knew I couldn’t let the Buford community down. So…I ran back to my hotel room and spent the next 3 hours translating, practicing, and confirming my Spanish with my mom (in California) on speakerphone. The evening was a success. Everyone laughed at all the right places. The families of Buford made me feel like family and at the end I actually felt like a rock star taking pictures with my fans.

This visit solidified for me the importance of having Latino role models and bringing authors to the schools. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to spend more time with the students and get the chance to learn about their lives in the South. I would have liked to meet a Latino with a Southern accent–maybe next time.

Available in Spanish July 2012!

Last weekend, four fabulous models (Iris, Bianca, Crystal and Xalli ) agreed to participate in a photoshoot for my new website. I have to admit it didn’t take much to convince them. :)

The models took over five hundred pictures in four different locations on a windy San Francisco day–talk about dedication. I want to thank their parents and my primo Carlos for driving all the way from Salinas to partake in this affair.

None of this would’ve been possible without the vision by my website guru/creative director jose d lopez and the ultra amazing photography skills of Chandra Narcia. Thanks for your support and love!

“Hey Malin, how’s it going?” The book agent asked.
“I’m Okay.” I lied.
“Are you busy right now?”
“Not really,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. An agent calling me! This had to be BIG, I thought.
“I have this book project that I think you’d be perfect for…”

And that’s how the Border Town series was born. It turned out that the agent was right. The project was perfect for me. Now six months later, I’ve completed three books in the series. It’s been a writing whirlwind. I am so grateful to all my friends for helping me these past few months. Thanks for sharing your homes, stories, and food with me.

I have one more book to write before the end of the year.

Book 1 release date: May 2012 (English edition) and July 2012 (Spanish edition).

Since leaving Cayo, I went to an ultra “exclusive” island, Tobacco Cayes. The island was gorgeous. Had to take a 45 minute boat ride there. It’s the only island that sits on top of a coral reef so it was a popular spot for scuba divers and snorkelers. However the place was VERY expensive. I sat on the beach for one day, but then I got bored or maybe it was the horrible sewage system there that made the tropical paradise remind me of the Hunter’s Point Sewage Plant or maybe it was the expensive meals. Either way, I knew this spot was not for me. I said goodbye to my friend who worked there and jumped on the boat back with a 100% Garifuna boat man who spoke 4 languages and used to work as a cook in Manhattan.

Then off to Placencia, a backpackers paradise: cheap rooms, cheap food, great beach. However I was disappointed to return one year later and see how poorly the local economy was doing. Shops I used to frequent were gone. Shop owners rented out their homes and were living in their shops to make ends meet. The beaches weren’t taken care of and there were  hardly any tourists. I stayed in Plancencia only one day because I was trying to make my way down to Guatemala. So I found the cheapest room $25 Belize  (12 US) thinking that I would save money. Hijole! The place was so dirty I didn’t even want to put my bags on the floor. There was a communal toilet that someone had recently used and forgot to flush. It was the longest night ever and I hope to never have  to go through the horrid situation again. I didn’t shower and used the bathroom only when I had to and slept on my clothes on top of the bed. :)
(I found out later that that hotel was the popular drug dealer spot to crash. Ha!)

Only to wake up at 6 am to catch a boat to another town, where I caught a bus to another town,and waited to hitchhike to the border. Now, normally I wouldn’t hitch hike. But I met a nice farmer from Guatemala on the bus who was also traveling to Guatemala and I just followed him–plus there were 10 Mayan women who also hitched hiked alongside me. We waited as car after car passed us by. I was beginning to wonder if I would have to sleep outside when a brand new white ford truck stopped for us. I jumped into the front and was welcomed by a friendly guy. Me in the front, four Mayan ladies packed behind, and three more people in the back. Our driver, Luis Armando Choco, is the manager of the Toledo Cacao Growers Association, the first and only organic producers in the country. The association hires local Mayan farmers as share croppers to produce organic cacao for exportation to the UK. He took us all the way to the boat depot which just so happened to be next to his office.

Crazy encounters. Now I’m off to another country, I’m a little nervous, hope my money will last and everything will be OK  :) My friend Edson will hopefully be there to pick me up at the capital and then to the village of Rabinal. I’ll email as soon as I get there.

All my love!
M.

Familia, amigos, and other random folk:

Aqui estoy, week two in beautiful San Ignacio, Cayo, Belize where the jungle is alive with jaguars and toucans and the streets are filled with gold toothed Mayans carrying sharp machetes. Ay!ive with jaguars and toucans and the streets are filled with gold toothed Mayans carrying sharp machetes. Ay!

On Friday I went to the amazing mystical city of Tikal. I climbed steep pyramids up past the clouds, got bit by the biggest ant in the world, and attacked by the tourism monster. Tikal was NOT CHEAP. $20 US just to enter the park. $17 to leave Belize. $60 for the ride. But it was worth it, the road through Guatemala was beautiful. I got some great shots of women washing in the river. And I would totally go again. The crazy thing though is that my camera broke while there…

This past weekend was very low key. Saturday we visited the market. Farmers from all over the Cayo district come down to sell their foods, fish, poultry. Todo. Shrimp and lobster are in season! Woo hoo! Later, we went to visit the local pyramid of Cahal Pech (Land of the Tick). No, there were no Mayan Lords named Tick. The pyramids got that name because before it was uncovered in the 1950s it was a grazing area for cows. Ha!  Vicente (my partner in crime) and I went to a butterfly garden on Sunday because it was free. We actually wanted to take a canoe down the Mopan river but everything here is a tourist excursion and over $50 US. So we went on a hike. Didn’t see any wild animals though.

Yesterday, we visited a farmer, Victor Balan, from 7 mile (that’s the name of the town because it’s actually 7 miles long). Victor is related to just about everyone in the community. They are Yucateco Mayans who left Mexico during the 1700s Caste wars. His farm is about an acre and he grows: green beans, plantains, sugar cane, corn, okra, bananas, coconut, and a whole bunch of fruit that I can’t even pronounce. Vicente and I were macheteros in training so we cut down a bunch of weeds six feet tall (I kid you not). I’ve got three blisters and two cuts on my once soft and silky hands to prove it.

The mosquitos love me here. I think I’ve been bitten by at least six different varieties. Some get infected, some itch, others are just painful. I heard aloe vera works.

Drugs. There are tons of plantas medicinales out in the jungle. Vicente and I are trying to remember them all. Most are good for the blood. Today we tried chicoloro (a bark from a tree). It was beyond BITTER, made you want to spit it out and burn your tongue with a torch. But we both drank it. Yesterday we tried a green leafy herb on the farm  that I can’t recall but was also bitter (not as much) and also good for the blood. Hopefully it’ll keep the mosquitos away too! What I need is constipation tea. I did hear of a plant called tapa culo but that’s not what I need. If anyone is suffering from that, let me know, and I’ll bring you some tapa culo.

Today we worked with one of our former students designing a agricultural school project. TNAFA (the organization I came down here with) wants to collaborate in the center’s development and make the school our Belizian satellite center. She has 50 something acres that she wants to develop. But Belize is a corrupt place and land deals change with each changing government. We are raising money to help her get the land surveyed and recorded with the ministry so that it doesn’t get taken away like what’s happened to her father and other people in the area.

OK, tomorrow I’m off to see her land in Barton Creek, record the trees and medicial plants and if I’m lucky try out my new machete.

Mucho amor!

Malin aka La Machetona

Stay tuned for snippets!