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 Links to My Work:
"Lounge Lizards," appeared in Whistling Shade, 2002 , (Whistling Shade, Inc.), and was reprinted at Café Irreal, issue 11, in 2004. Surrealist story inspired by my husband's election to the school board. *Angelique, not her real name, no longer performs locally.
"Leaving Well-Enough Alone," Flashquake, vol.3, issue 2, 2003. Creative nonfiction. In which the heroine tracks down her first love. "The Tattoo Lady, Mother and Me," The Ink Pot, III, Lit Pot Press, Inc., 2004, 25-31. Creative nonfiction. Mom compares me to the tattoo lady every chance she gets. I have no tattoo’s. Excerpt from The Secret of Old Blood: "Of Nuns and the Demimonde," appeared in altered form on FriGG (summer, 2004). |
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Published Work:
"Toothsome," fiction, in Seasoned Sistahs, (Nubian Images Publishing), March 2005. The book won first place anthology honors at the Los Angeles Black Book Expo. I’m not black, but I’m definitely a seasoned sistah. "Mrs. Frye," Best Lesbian Love Stories of 2004, (Alyson Publications). This book was nominated for a Lambda Literary award, and led to my first reading. I’m straight, pretty much. "LA MúSICA," N.O.L.A. Spleen,7, 2004 (Wild Berries Press, New Orleans, LA). Prose poem. "The Mothers of Invention," Hell Hath No Fury, (Lulu, Inc., 2004). A how to on child rearing. Adultery. Theft. Murder. What would you do to redirect your child's destructive impulses? |
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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. |
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sandra o'briant
