I only began writing stories after I moved to Los Angeles, Southern California, in October 2003. Coming here to Hollywood, the birthplace of America’s movie industry, struck me as a completion of my creative life circle. Mind you, coming to America was never part of my dreams as a youth. In my native land of Guyana, going to the movies was a major form of entertainment. As former British colonial subjects in what was then British Guiana, we watched lots of British movies and documentary films. After we gained independence in 1966, the screening of Hollywood productions rose to prominence.

Another favorite pastime was listening to serialized stories on the radio. But my strongest connection with storytelling was with the written word. From the age of eight years old, books became my best companion. The magical worlds of Enid Blyton provided an escape from anxieties and fears born of warring parents and the tumultuous adult world in public spaces. The mysteries in the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys stories were easier to solve than the racial divisiveness corroding the soul of our small country.

My immersion in the world of storytelling ended when I entered the convent. At twenty years old, I dedicated my life in the service of my God. That’s me as a young novice in the photo on the right. Recommended personal reading focused on the spiritual life. Apart from the biblical texts, the writings of Thomas Merton, an American Trappist monk, topped the reading list.

For the next seven years, I lost touch with the latest works of fiction, movies, as well as pop music. During those years, I wrote lots of letters to relatives and friends who had fled Guyana for more secure distant lands. In addition to teaching art to high school students, I channeled my artistic creativity into making religious banners and diverse posters for convent and parish events.

My artistic creativity withered when I left the convent. Set adrift, I groped for reeds in the swift river currents of secular life. Three years later, marriage brought new meaning and direction to my life. That’s me, second photo from the right, on our wedding day at our parish church signing the marriage register. I believed then that we would stay together “till death do us part.”

Motherhood was consuming and complicated. Living conditions in Guyana became harsher. We migrated to Brazil with our two sons, then two and four years old. After four years of struggling to stay afloat amidst rising currents of monetary inflation, my then husband returned to Guyana, abandoning me and his sons in Brazil. I clung to God, my strength and light in the darkness that engulfed me. The photo with me and my sons was taken the year I had regained my self-confidence and self-worth. It would take almost twelve years before I could reunite with my family. Except for my father, my mother and siblings had migrated to the United States and Canada.

The reunion with my mother, after more than thirty years of separation, proved disastrous for my emotional well-being. Within the first week of our arrival in Los Angeles, she, too, abandoned me. I turned to writing as a form of self-therapy. Why had I been thrice abandoned—by the nuns, my husband, and my mother? What had I done to deserve such treatment? My failure seems so obvious now, but it took four years while working on my first book, Under the Tamarind Tree: A Novel, for the truth to rise to the surface. That's me in the photo on the left with Gloria, the owner of Gloria's Restaurant in West Los Angeles where until March 2020 our writers' critique group met every month to discuss our work in progress.

My second novel, The Twisted Circle, inspired by real events in my final year in the convent, was published in August 2021 during the period when the Covid-19 pandemic had upended our world.

I developed a love for poetry after meeting the American poet Angela Consolo Mankiewicz (1944-2017) in February 2008. At the time, I was the secretary of the Mid-Wilshire Writers Group started in August 2006 as a potential Los Angeles chapter of the California's Writers Club. Ours was a "wonderfully unlikely" friendship, to use Angela's words. The Featured Poets: Brazil, Caribbean, and the United States over the years on my monthly Poetry Corner are reminders of our nine-year journey together. She remains close to my heart.

With Angela's encouragement, I began testing out the poetic waters. I share some my Haiku Poems, written during the period 2011 to 2017, on my author's website.

Inspirational stories of overcoming adversity have enriched my life in innumerable ways. I hope that my stories, too, can enrich your life. While you are here, you can also check out the snapshots of my six Short Stories, available for free access on the Guyana Journal website.

LEARN MORE:

I share my multicultural identity and vision of the world in my blog article, Three Worlds One Vision.

See Behind the Scenes Tamarind Novel and Twisted Circle for information on the making, setting, and characters of each novel, as well as selected research resources.

I talk about my writing process in my interview with Guyanese-Canadian author Ken Puddicombe.

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