Jan 282010

Gringa in a Strange Land, Linda Dahl – Author Guest Post

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TITLE: Gringa in a Strange Land
AUTHOR: Linda Dahl
PUBLISHER: Robert Reed Publishers
PUBLICATION DATE: January 1, 2010
PAGES: 256 pages
GENRE: Fiction

Gringa in a Strange Land brings back the ‘counterculture’ of the early 70’s, an exhilarating and confusing time for so many young people then. Erica Mason, an American woman living in Mexico, is torn between working to become an artist and the lure of the drug culture. Set mostly in the colonial city of Merida in the Yucatan peninsula, the story then moves among Mayan ruins, laid-back beaches and the cities of Belize and Oaxaca. A host of bohemian expats and Mexicans, and the complex character of Mexico itself, infuse this portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-American, that culminates in an unexpected resolution. – AMAZON.COM

AUTHOR GUEST POST…Why I Didn’t Study Writing to Become a Writer

I’ve been writing since I was a little girl. No, that’s not strictly true. From my later teens through my mid-twenties, I was finding out about life, having adventures, making mistakes, trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. This turned out to be excellent training, in my opinion, much better than getting an English major in college (I love how Garrison Keillor pokes fun at this). Not that I have anything against English majors, writing classes and workshops. They give needful employment to a lot of writers, who always need an income, since writing rarely provides it. And I loved many things about college, above all the glorious luxury of reading and discussing books. But I was one of those restless young people who grew up in the 60’s. As soon as I could, I was figuring out ways to travel and live in foreign countries, without much money. Reading and travel became my passions.

Photobucket Teachers always say “write about what you know,” but I was aware as a young woman that I didn’t know much; or rather that what I knew didn’t interest me that much (then). What I wanted was new places, exotic adventures. I ended up working and living in many parts of Latin America and that became a huge canvas for fiction. I met peasants, hustlers, artists, bush pilots, drug dealers, students, musicians, a few scions of the old landed artistocracy that had ruled for centuries. Some of these characters and experiences culminated in my new novel, Gringa in a Strange Land. At last I was “writing about what I knew.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…Linda Dahl has written extensively about Latin America, women in jazz, New Orleans and other topics that interest her over a thirty-year career as a published author. She has lived in Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil and New York and currently lives in an old farmhouse with lots of flowers and pets. A widow, she has a daughter and a stepson. Her website is www.lindadahl.com and blog about her new book at http://gringainastrangeland.blogspot.com.