Get Gaspar's New Book!

Bless me, oh gods of the Royal Blogsphere, it's been more than a year since my last blog. So many vestiges of my Catholic upbringing. Maybe that's why the concept of the "bad woman" intrigues me so much, because of that heavy Catholic/Christian/Patriarchal judgment placed on a woman's head, from Lilith and Eve down to all women, particularly those of us of the lesbian and/or feminist and/or queer persuasion. In fact, that's what my new book is all about. I realized I've been writing about "bad women," or at least women who were considered "bad" in their own lifetimes or who have become the scapegoats for all the bad stuff that has befallen our culture and our raza for the last 500 years--in both my fiction and my scholarship. I'm very proud of this collection of scholarly essays. You'll find pieces on Sor Juana, on la Malinche, on Chicana feminist artists and lesbian theorists, on the murdered girls and women of Juárez, as well as a rewriting of the Coyolxauhqui myth, and an opening letter to my paisana from the border, Gloria Anzaldúa, in gratitude for her lenguas de fuego. There are also 8 color plates and 37 black and white photos. Artwork includes different images by Alma Lopez, beginning with that fabulous cover she created for the occasion of the book's publication, as well as pieces by Ester Hernández, Yreina Cervantez, Liliana Wilson, Patssi Valdez, Laura Aguilar, Deliliah Montoya, Alma Gómez-Frith, Miguel Gandert, Alfonso Cano, the "Saint Jerome" of Leonardo da Vinci, the iconic "American Progress, 1872" by John Gast, and a painting of Juana Inés by my very own mother, Teyali Falcón that she created for the publication of Sor Juana's Second Dream. I'll be doing my first book talk and signing in Albuquerque on my birthday, July 29, at BookWorks, and a month later, another event at BookWoman in Austin, Texas, if anybody's interested in coming out to support the work. A special shout-out to the University of Texas Press, and my (now retired) editor, Theresa May, for always producing such beautiful books and helping to grow the library of Chicana feminist lesbian scholarship. You can order the book directly (and at a 33% discount) through U.T. Press, or go to my website to order it through Amazon.com. If you'd like for me to come and speak about the book at your university, send me an email.

Upcoming book talks/book signings:

Bookworks Albuquerque

July 29, 6-8pm

BookWoman

Austin, TX, August 28, 7pm

Scenes from a Journal

7/3/08
In the Plazuela de San Martín in Segovia, a stone fish spouts water into a fountain and a saxophone spouts low notes into an afternoon of geraniums and white-canopied tables on the side of a hill, and two little girls watch the woman I love sketching orange over a yellow heart, the fish that caught both of us in this tiny plazuela in Segovia.


7/11/08
The Mass is ending at Notre Dame. We found la Guadalupana here, resplendent in her own nicho with a jeweled crown on her head and candle offerings with her image stamped on the cup. She's the only Virgin we've seen with her own line of candles. This is how great Paris has been so far. Yesterday I proposed (again) on the Eiffel Tower and today we said vows of love and gratitude to each other during the mass at Notre Dame. Our wedding in California isn't until August, but it feels as though, in another lifetime, we must have sat in this cathedral before, perhaps married each other for the first time in this very spot, the nave filled with the smoke of incense and the voice of an angel singing blessings over our heads. I sit here writing and Alma draws another Virgin in watercolor hues.

8/24/08 (honeymooning in New Mexico)
Now we're at Chimayo where we came to film Marion Martinez for Alma's "Our Lady" DVD that we're going to include in our book. It's so green because of all the rain this summer, and the trees look younger than I've ever seen them, while the santuario looks older, more rickety and worn with age. I find the contrast amazing--the young, fertile trees, the dynamic energy of the water crashing through the acequia, and the old dilapidated church. There's a family of Mexicanos having a picnic out here under the cottonwoods and weeping willows. Mexicanos love their Sunday picnics in the park. A baby cries, a young boy calls out to someone in the parking lot, children laugh and play along the ditch. This is Llorona territory--the ditch, the flowing water, and the children playing too close to the stream. At dusk, la Llorona will come down from the red hill and see if anybody left a child here, or a memento of a child, a doll's head, a baby's shoe, a toy of some kind, and she will gather it up and carry it into the santuario to bless the lives of the children who played there that afternoon.