Hello New York

If anyone's reading this in the Big Apple, there are several events connected with the publication of One Life this coming week -- coincidentally around the Days of the Dead, pertinent given the book's subject matter, which is life and death. On October 31 at 4 PM, I will be part of a panel speaking about the border between Mexico and the United States at the Graduate Center at CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 9206. On November 2 at 2 PM, I'll be interviewed on a radio show called The Write Stuff, on WNYU Radio at 89.1 FM. And on November 3 at 1 PM, I'll be on The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC, 93.9 FM.

I'll also be reading from the book, and in a dialogue with esteemed novelist Daniel Alarcón, at the Strand Bookstore on November 3 at 7 PM. If you can make it to that one, I'll also be signing books -- and there will be some wine with which to celebrate. Please come and say hello.

New and improved

I hadn’t updated this web site since I began it in 2008. Now that my first novel, One Life, has just been published, I thought it was time to give it a new coat of paint. Thanks to the help of a technical wizard and web designer named Michael Dunham, here we are. Since I began the site, I mostly posted in the blog about Mexico City, which has been my home since 1990. Back in 2008, I had spent several years making a living writing for magazines about the place. But my life has changed a great deal since then. Mostly, I’ve been working as a mitigation specialist, assisting lawyers in the US who defend undocumented Mexicans (and other Latin Americans) who have been charged with capital murder and as such are facing the death penalty. We try to find them a better destiny that that.

This work is the point of departure for One Life.

In any case, while I am going to continue to post about Mexico City, I want the blog to reflect a wider array of my interests, and especially my progress as a writer. I will be in New York until November 4 promoting One Life, and then in Austin at the Texas Book Festival on the 5th and the 6th. If you are around any of those areas, please click on the Events page, in case you can help celebrate the publication with me.