Published excerpts from The Secret of Old Blood:The Sandoval Sisters, an historical novel of old Santa Fe: 

"The Devil at the Dance," an excerpt from the original novel, appeared in La Herencia, vol. XXXV, Fall 2002, (Gran Via, Inc.), and was subsequently online at latinola.com.

"Of Nuns and the Demimonde," appeared in altered form on FriGG (summer, 2004).

"The First White Woman," appeared in The Copperfield Review, (Fall, 2004).

 












Sandra and Saguaro under the moon.

There's a tether from my heart to my family in Santa Fe.
Buffeted by dry wind, hardened by the sun, brittle from snow, it endures.
Nourished by my dreams, fed from the font of shared memory, watered by laughter. It's a living thing.

Bio:

   As the daughter of a Spanish Catholic and a Texan Baptist, I was introduced to both the self-flagellating Penitentes of New Mexico and the tent show holy-rollers of East Texas. In addition, my hometown of Santa Fe, the city of Holy Faith, is host to state politics and the attendant corruption, artists and their hangers-on, and a thriving homosexual community.

      All of this went into my first book, The Secret of Old Blood: The Sandoval Sisters.  It is an historical novel set in the 19th and early decades of the 20th century in old Santa Fe. The issues confronted by three sisters are contemporary: racism, sexual and religious intolerance, the power of superstition, incest, reproductive freedom. Finally, it is a story of what constitutes a family, and the myths associated with the blood and bounds of loyalty.

A Short History of Names: 

            My grandmother was a Sandoval, and married a Gallegos.  My mother married the O’Briant.  My father was no sweetheart, but I’ve stubbornly clung to his name.  Growing up in Santa Fe, both my brother and I got the shit kicked out of us for having an Anglo last name.  Yet, my mother had proudly relinquished her own father’s Spanish surname because of the discrimination she experienced for being Mexican.  For her, an Anglo last name was a step up.  She had no idea her future children would experience reverse discrimination.  Hence, my cynical world view.

            So, where did the Ramos come from?  I borrowed it from the slender, bookish part of a widely-traveled lesbian couple who took an interest in me, or my mother*, and gave us a subscription to National Geographic when I was ten.  Yes, the gesture and that magazine opened my mind to possibilities beyond the Santa Fe city limits, but I also wanted to proclaim my heritage, and not from the ground looking up, as I had once done with my childhood tormentors: “My mom is Spanish!”*

*Ms. O’Briant’s mother would like you to know she loves men.  Always has.  Always will.

*Read Mexican.   Spanish was the historically correct term in use in Santa Fe back in my getting-beaten-up days.  In my book, the characters are New Mexicans.