It’s October 2022. GHOSTS UNVEILED! was published two years ago and got lost in the pandemic when schools were closed and bookstores had few visits. Talk about creepy and true….!!!
So….here I am sharing a video I made back then when we all were working from home. Follett Learning featured GHOSTS! on its “First Chapter Friday,” so I prepared a talk and recorded it from my desk .
I’m grateful to Follett for giving me a chance to talk about how I started to write this book, and then re-write a big chunk of it. Because, if you are in the writing business, you learn that a first draft is NEVER enough!
Day of the Dead, Día de Los Muertos, is a holiday I’ve written about in the last ten years. Tracing back to its Mexican and Central American roots, we find that this celebration is a mix of Catholic Christian and very old Aztec traditions.
Day of the Dead exhibit, Desert Art Museum, Tucson. “For Julia from Meredith…..”
On November 1 and 2, families welcome back the spirits of their loved ones by building shrines to their memory in their homes, as well as gathering in cemeteries to mark those days with soft music, bright yellow marigolds to guide the spirits home, and even picnic and share their family favorites such as “Grandma’s tamales.” Kids write their names on sugar skulls. Skulls (calaveras) in fact, take a head role in Day of the Dead, as they did during Aztec times.
At a Tucson art museum, I once saw a Day of the Dead memorial, a covered bed filled with notes to their dear departed written by visitors, It was a very touching sight. I came home and decided that I’d make my own shrine in memory of those who’d died, including my mother and my dog and cat.
My shrine. Mama and I are in the photo upper left; Maverick and Cloudy center right.Read more about Day of the Dead in GHOSTS UNVEILED!
