Something different

Today I am guest blogging on Squalorly, a literary magazine. Please, come and read me here. I will appreciate your comments. 

Thank you!

Two poems

"What we have once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose. For all that we love deeply becomes a part of us." Helen Keller
 This week I had two poems accepted by The Voices Project. One of them will be published the week of May 27th, 2013. I don't know about the other one yet.

Have a beautiful weekend everyone!

Spring

Spring is here. Do you like to contemplate the transformation of nature?

Open Windows, my flash fiction piece in Epiphany Magazine

 My flash fiction piece "Open Windows" was published in the May issue of Epiphany Magazine .You can read it here. It is available for free online.

 Warning: this blog entry is not a lighthearted one. It is related to the theme of Open Windows.

  I would like to write about the woman who inspired me to write this story: Susana Trimarco. Susana Trimarco was a conventional woman living in Tucuman, an Argentine province, until her life changed forever on April 3, 2002.

 On this date, her twenty-three year old daughter, Maria de Los Angeles Veron (Marita), went to a medical appointment but never reached her destination. (The picture I posted on this blog entry is a photo of Marita Veron).

  Her partner and her parents reported her disappearance to the police on that same day, but the police officer made fun of them. He said she might have run away with another man.

  A witness reported that Marita had been forced to get into a red car by a group of men. Far from supporting Susana, the police ignored her. Susana decided to take the matter into her own hands. 

  While investigating the matter, Susana raised her grandchild, Micaela. Micaela was only two years old when her mother, Marita, disappeared.
   There is plenty of evidence that Marita has been kidnapped and forced into prostitution. In other words, she has been sold as a commodity and used as a sex slave.
  Even though Susana received several death threats, she  never gave in to fear. As a result of her search, she discovered a criminal network of Human Trafficking and, over time, she was able to release hundreds of women and girls.

  Risking her own life, she visited brothels to gather information and find her own daughter. She pretended she had the intention to buy girls or women. In doing so, she ended up saving more victims, but not Marita. Anahi, a young woman who was set free after being a victim of sexual trafficking reported that she had seen Marita in the same brothel where they had been used as sex slaves. Some of the victims are sold to networks in other countries.

     Susana started a foundation called Fundacion Maria de los Angeles, an organization that rescues victims of human trafficking and provides counseling and social assistance.

    In 2008 Susana Trimarco’s efforts led to legislation that prohibits human trafficking in Argentina. Since then, 3,000 people have been saved, but the problem still exists. (Marita disappeared when the act of trafficking  was not  even contemplated by the Argentine law; hence, it was not considered illegal).

   In 2007, on International Woman’s Day, the US Department of State honored Trimarco with the International Women of Courage Award.

   In 2012 Canada honored her with the John Diefenbaker Defender of Human Rights and Freedom Award.

   Unfortunately, her husband, Marita’s father, died in 2010. Yet Susana Trimarco never stopped searching for their daughter. In December 2012, despite the overwhelming evidence against those who were involved in the kidnapping and trafficking of Marita Veron, the judges dismissed all the information provided by the witnesses, and the accused ones were all released.

    Susana Trimarco has been nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, but the only award that she yearns for is to find her daughter. Eleven years after her disappearance she is still looking for her. And she will never give up.

Important note: this is not an isolated case. Forced prostitution and human trafficking are real ongoing problems that exist not just in developing countries but also in the United States and Europe. Here's a link to clarify some misconceptions: http://www.ksmm.admin.ch/ksmm/en/home/themen/menschenhandel/irrmeinungen.html

Creating characters for a story

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves." Carl Jung

  There is something enigmatic about the art of crafting a character. Once the characters become vivid to us, they acquire a life of their own. We no longer control their experiences.
  Last year I wrote a blog entry that said that characters don't need to be likable, but they do need to feel real. However, I also have to admit that it is easier to seduce your readers when they root for one of your characters. In other words, when readers identify with one of your characters in some way, they feel more motivated to read the story because they imagine themselves in the character’s situation. They are eager to know what would happen to them if they did what the character is doing.

  As a writer you dare to explore emotional situations that make others feel embarrassed, scared or threatened. Being a fiction writer involves the challenging task of being in somebody else’s shoes because you need to see the world from your character’s perspective.

     This is an invitation to open your mind to possibilities you've never imagined before. You experience a new life, forging your way through a labyrinth you are not entirely familiar with. It means stepping out of your comfort zone. You need to be bold.

    When you embark on this challenge, you are behaving like an actor or actress. You bring your characters to life by exposing your own shame, frustration, love, passion, insecurities, fears, anger or whatever emotions are needed. 

   This experience can be very profound and it needs an open mind and heart. It requires compassion and patience. Otherwise, the story will not sound real. It will sound judgmental and shallow. Even if you don't agree with your character, you make every attempt to understand him/her.
   A part of you needs to love the character, and while you write your story you become the character, but you are not the character.

     So, as a reader, do you like to identify with at least one of the characters in a story? 
   As a writer, what is your relationship with your characters like? 

Pablo Picasso's Guernica

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.” Pablo Picasso

  A couple of weeks ago I attended an exhibition of Picasso’s work. It motivated me to read about his life and it helped me to understand how his art is connected to the social issues of his time and to the turmoil of his personal experiences.

 The reasons I found this exhibition fascinating are the following:

-Picasso was daring. He was not afraid of innovating and he pioneered an art movement called cubism (more on this on a future post).

-The variety of his work amazed me. His art evolved through different phases that correlated with his life and his social setting.

-His long life-- he died at age 91 -- enabled him to create a massive amount of artwork. Interestingly, he lived in two different centuries.

Today I will focus on his most famous masterpiece: Guernica.

  When I was a child my mother gave me a book of famous paintings by different artists. It included riveting explanations about each of the masterpieces. One of them was Guernica. The emotional impact it had on me must have been strong, for I never forgot this painting.

   Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was born in Spain, but he migrated to France. While he was living in Paris he was shocked by the news of the bombing of Guernica, a small Basque town in Northern Spain.

   On April 26, 1937, Nazi airplanes, backed by the extremist right wing forces of General Francisco Franco, bombed Guernica and 1,600 civilians were killed. The small town burned for three days. The attack took place on a Monday because many people who lived on the farms went to the market on that day of the week. Those who tried to escape were shot from airplane machine guns or were blown up with explosives.

  Pablo Picasso’s rage at this atrocity inspired him to paint "Guernica", which is described as "the most important work of art of the twentieth century". When he painted it, Picasso intended to expose the suffering and desperation that are inevitably attached to any war.

  Guernica is a mural-sized oil painting. It is 11 feet tall (3.5 m) and 25.6 feet long (7.8m). Most of the people in the painting express despair and terror. 

  If we go from left to right, the first figure  we see is that of a woman. You can almost hear her shrieking. She is holding her dead baby. Her eyes express profound anguish. Her naked bosom suggests that she might have been nursing her baby when the bombings struck the town.

  The next thing you see is a bull. The image of it is controversial. He is merely a witness of the woman’s grief. There are different interpretations about the bull. Some people believe that the bull could be somebody who, like Picasso, watches these calamities as an outsider: he is not physically wounded, but he is emotionally touched. Picasso refused to attribute a meaning to it, but bulls are a recurrent element in his artwork (the “minotauro" has the head of a bull and the body of a man) and he associated it with lust and behaviors or emotions that are out of control.

  There is a horse lying in agony. It symbolizes the suffering of the people of Spain, a country ravaged by war. There is chaos all around.

 A dead soldier is lying on the ground; his eyes express pain. His fight had no influence on the outcome of the bombings of Guernica. His arm is grasping a sword and a bunch of flowers. The flowers may represent his ideals, or they may be a symbol of  hope. On the right side of the painting there is a woman on fire.

  The painting is done in black, white and different shades of gray, most likely to depict a gloomy atmosphere. It may also be a symbol of the fact that the news of the war spread through newspapers.

    Guernica was first exhibited at the 1937 World’s Fair held in Paris as part of a display of Spanish art. After this exhibition it traveled to England, Spain and Scandinavian countries. Then it toured the United States of America. It is now exhibited in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain.
 Had it not been for Picasso, the bombing of Guernica might have been forgotten by the world. Yet the theme of this painting is timeless and powerful. 

      

To the Arctic

  "As mothers, the greatest gift we can pass on to our children is a healthy planet."

   Would you like to swim underwater close to polar bears?  Would you enjoy flying over the ocean? How about floating near huge masses of ice?  If you've been to an IMAX theater you know what I am talking about.
 

  "To the Arctic" is a captivating documentary about the Arctic. During the mid winter months the sun never rises in the Arctic and average temperatures are around -40 F; in the summer the sun never sets.
   Polar bears are mysterious, intriguing creatures. The Arctic is their home and there is no other place on earth where they can live and thrive.
   This white universe, the Arctic, is warming twice as fast as any other region of the planet. If the sea ice continues to melt at the current speed there will be no sea ice by the year 2,050.

  Due to these changes, polar bears are struggling to survive and new challenges arise. It is getting hard for them to catch seals, and some male polar bears resort to cubs (baby polar bears) as a source of food.
  Mother polar bears take two years to raise their cubs. During this time they nurture them and train them to become independent. These mothers are determined to protect their cubs from the hungry male polar bears, and they do so at the expense of their own lives. They are ready to sacrifice themselves to protect their offspring.
 There is a scene in which a mother deters a male bear from catching her offspring. Her courage and tenacity win the battle.
  Let's hope this motherly love will inspire mankind to save the Arctic...

Have a peaceful week.