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Interview by Marcela Landres, editor of Latinidad


Pam Allyn is the executive director of LitLife and LitWorld, national and 
global literacy organizations. She is a nationally recognized expert on 
children's reading and writing development. Her books and work have 
received numerous awards, including the National Parenting Magazine and 
Mom's Choice awards. She lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. For 
more information, visit http://pamallyn.com/ 

Q: Many parents know the advantages of reading to their children, but why 
is it important for children to also write?

A: I see reading as breathing in, and writing as breathing out. They go 
together as beautifully as that. A growing child is busy creating all the time, 
whether through play or through conversation, and writing is a way for the 
child to begin to put ideas out into the world. In writing, the child practices 
what they are absorbing through reading and being read to. The beauty of 
language, the pleasure of a rhyme, the lovely choice of the perfect word. 
When the child goes to his own page or screen, he then makes decisions 
based on what he's heard and read. What moved him in his reading life will 
propel him towards a writing life. Also, the child who writes is learni

Gratitude: 1. the state of being grateful. 2. What the 1% feels all the time; what the 99% want to feel at least 1 day a year. 3. Melinda Palacio's La Bloga post yesterday and something worth reading.
Gratuity: 1. A favor or gift, usually in the form of money, given in return for service. 2. What Americans get showing up early Black Friday.
Nongratuity: 1. What American Latinos and the rest of the 99% get every day from the 1%. 2. A word I made up.

[Some] Occupy updates – [some] gratitude

I at least feel grateful for protestors across the world who created and have sustained all the Occupy's. It's provided real hope during another round of elections that provided little, at least to me. Some of our elected officials have escalated their anti-Occupy actions to the level of Nazi Germany book burnings, while sparing us the expense of the matches.

From an intro to a Rebecca Solnit article comes this:
"On November 15th when the NYPD entered the encampment at Zuccotti Park, a weaponless and peaceable spot filled with sleeping activists and the homeless, they used pepper spray, ripped and tore down everything, and tossed all 4,000 books from the OWS “library” into a dumpster, damaging or mangling most of them. Books couldn’t escape the state’s violence, nor could the library’s tent, bookshelves, chairs, computers, periodicals, and archives. Even librarians were arrested.

"Novelist Salman Rushdie tweeted a perfectly reasonable response to the police action: “Please explain the difference between burning books and throwing thousands in the trash and destroying them.

"It put the Constitution in the dumpster."

Update on Marcela Landres questions – the gratuity

In return for the service of your readership and sending us a question, La Bloga is offering the nonmonetary gratuity of having a Latina professional answer your burning question about publishing your work. See last week's post for details.

This is from Marcela herself concerning that offer: "I just shared the link with my followers on Twitter, etc. and am very much looking forward to seeing the questions. Please forward all the questions after the deadline and

This year I have so much to be grateful for, especially that a young woman named Blanca blessed me with enough love and confidence to carry with me after her premature death at age 44. I tell the story of my mother often, especially when discussing my novel, Ocotillo Dreams, something else to be grateful for this year. This is the year when call myself an author and meet with students, book clubs and readers across the country. I couldn’t help but give my main character Isola the characteristic of having lost her mother at about the same age I did. Everything that happens to Isola is fiction as is her estranged relationship with her mother, Marina. Unlike Isola, I was fortunate to have a close relationship with my mother. I didn’t want to write an autobiography and call it a novel. The autobiography might come much later, after I get the stories kicking around in my head out into the world.

The important lesson I’ve learned in the past ten years is to do what I love and to appreciate all life has to offer. This would seem like a manageable, if not easy task. However, when my mother died I spent so many years wallowing in self-pity. Although I took several years to recover from a deep sense of loss and depression, in Ocotillo Dreams, Isola does not have the luxury of time. The events in the novel are compressed in order to keep the action and narrative moving forward. In hindsight, I would’ve taken a page from Michele Serros who learned how to use poetry and writing as a way of upholding her mother’s memory. However, I appreciate and accept that different people don’t learn life’s tough lessons at the same speed.

Whenever I take a chance and accomplish something new, I always think of Blanca. I used to be embarrassed by how proud she was of me. She bragged about me even though I was an average ballet dancer, an average actress, an average daughter. I may have been an above average student, but that was necessary in order to get into UC Berkeley, and then UC Santa Cruz for graduate school in Comparative Literature. Now I do all the bragging myself. Talking about myself and my writing is second nature because I had a great example on how to do it.

Last Tuesday, I spoke to a literature class at Santa Barbara City College. The Chicano Studies course, The Chicana and Other Latina Women in the US, was taught by Magda Torres, an instructor who was instrumental in making sure I participated in next year’s Santa Barbara Women’s Literary Festival, along with Michele Serros. Last Thursday, I met with a Santa Barbara book club at the invitation of Leslie Dinaberg, editor of Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine. The praise and support I