"I understand that many people believe that writers write from their heart or from their soul. I write from the nagging pit of my gut, to make the stomachache go away."

“The most authentic me would, again, be the voice behind the short stories and poetry. The least “me” would be the script writer and the author of some magazine pieces I’ve written that have been, basically, paycheck pieces. After so many rewrites and editorial suggestions prompted by NY-based mainstream magazine editors whom I’ve never met, my voice definitely gets lost along the way.”

“I grew up reading a lot of young adult novels. And being an author and speaker and going into middle schools and high schools, I was seeing a lot of the same books that I read, and they followed a similar theme and that's a theme I like to call the three B's: It was always about barrios, borders or bodegas. And I wanted to present a different type of life — a life that truly goes on that we don't always see in the mainstream media.”

“I relished the fact that I was a fourth-generation Californian, but not looking like the stereotypical blond beach girl…I always felt like an outsider.”