00:11:00.340She was at the center of this major confrontation.
00:11:07.300And in power, there were her words that were going back and forth.
00:11:12.880And I was just like, how did this happen? Was there something in her upbringing that prepared her for something like this? I saw her as courageous and gutsy and, wow, smart.
00:11:30.400Because, you know, you know, she was at that point, by the time she met Matazuma, she was able to to speak and understand Spanish.
00:11:40.120She is she's this linguistic savant who's speaking four languages.
00:11:45.740And I was just like, you know, I was a shy Mexican-American girl with a with a, you know, a grasp on Spanish that was far from perfect.
00:11:56.480And that just blew me away that she was commanding that attention and that power.
00:12:07.560And then I'm putting it together with the little seed that had been implanted in my brain that this was someone really horrible and bad and bad for Mexico, bad for Mexicans.
00:12:20.900And she's the cause, you know, because of her, Cortez and his, you know, band of 300 soldiers at that time were able to conquer Mexico, which is baloney.0.99
00:13:42.440I just started researching and the more I researched and the more I'm hearing how she was just vilified and so maligned and just so kicked around, I became even more and more convinced that I wanted to tell her story.
00:14:04.600I wanted to see the world. I wanted people to see the world through her eyes. I wanted people to
00:14:11.200know that her life did not start with Hernan Cortes. That really struck me when I, because I
00:14:18.700got an early copy of your book that I got to read and I really enjoyed it. And I was surprised. And
00:14:23.640then I thought, why am I surprised at how much of the book is pre-Cortes? How much you're talking
00:14:29.020about her life? And like, of course it is because that wasn't, that's what she's best known for,
00:14:33.880but there's so much more about her and that doesn't define who she was. So I really appreciated
00:14:37.520how much of her pre-contact story you put in it. But also at the same time,
00:14:44.720where I'm curious is about what your research process was like, because most of what we know
00:14:48.220about her comes from the Spanish records once they interacted with her. So how did you go about
00:14:53.740figuring out what her life was like before all of that? Like, you know, and before slavery,
00:14:59.680like the very beginning of your book when she's just living in in this community and she doesn't
00:15:05.940know what life has to bring for her like how did you delve into that well as as you know from your
00:15:12.000previous radio cast there's very little about her she left us she left us no letters no journals
00:15:20.620diaries anything like that and the story of the conquest i mean and even even the on the ground
00:15:27.660eyewitness accounts of what happened there are, you know, are limited. We have Hernán Cortés's
00:15:36.860letters to the king of Spain, five letters, in which he mentions her twice. In one sentence,
00:15:47.500He refers to her as the Indian woman, la lengua, the tongue, meaning the interpreter.
00:15:57.460But it's just like in the way la lengua kind of pops off the page.
00:16:05.220And Diaz del Castillo talks about her, back to Cortez, in another, in a different letter,
00:16:13.480he names her, at least, Marina, and explains how she was gifted to me. And that's kind of it.
00:16:24.720The voice he used and was able to communicate through is two lines in these five letters,
00:16:35.460as if he figured it out all by himself. They're very self-serving letters, of course.
00:16:41.280But Diasso Castillo spends a little bit more time talking about her and still it's still not much, you know, and during like battles, you know, he's just exclaims that, you know, she had the courage, you know, even greater than a woman's.
00:17:00.320He admits that, you know, if not for her, they would have been killed.
00:17:05.780And so it's like, so with those limitations, I turn to indigenous accounts and there are indigenous accounts, but many of them are filtered, the majority of them are filtered through the lens of the Spanish friars who came, you know, immediately as soon as after Tenochtitlan, which happens in 1521, Cortez, let me back up.
00:17:33.880Cortez and Malinale, their meeting occurs in 1519.
00:17:40.540So in 1521, when the city falls, the priest, you know, came over very quickly from Spain
00:17:48.800because now the mission, you know, can move forward of evangelizing these people
00:17:55.820and bringing them over to the true Christ and all that.
00:17:59.000So we have accounts that they were able to, through their interviews, and once the people were learning the Roman alphabet, even some of the noble Nahua men were able to then take the stories of the elders and transcribe them to have that record.
00:18:25.420They were very good about kind of drawing the stories of myths, and there's poems, and there's war chants, and there's songs.
00:18:37.760They were very good about trying to gather all of that up.
00:18:44.020But there are records that today now have come down to us that are a little bit more closer to the source without, you know, that go between.
00:18:57.060And those sources include like the history of the Indies of New Spain, a general history of the things of New Spain.
00:19:06.120One thing to keep in mind, I mean, everyone thinks that everything was lost during the conquest.
00:19:12.520It was just like, you know, many of the books that the Nahuas had, they had screenfold text with their glyphs, their method for, you know, writing numbers that, you know, talked about rituals or didn't talk about.
00:19:29.860But they were signs for, you know, those who were like the orators who could use these texts as kind of like when they would stand and deliver their, you know, the history of what happened on this date.
00:19:45.320And, you know, it would be set to like music and possibly dance.
00:19:50.700So there is a wealth of information kind of like on the daily life, what they wore, how they ate, cloth, textiles.
00:20:01.060There's like whole chapters about giving over to textiles and, you know, the proper raising of a young girl.
00:20:07.560And so it occurred to me that the more I read, the more, too, I was learning about what it was like to be a woman at that time and growing up as a young girl.
00:20:20.280And I was also coming across, you know, there's a, I'm looking at the, everyone considers the Mexica primarily a patriarchal culture.
00:20:34.340And I wouldn't say primarily, the matriarchy was very strong too.
00:20:40.180In my readings, I came across a couple of notes in a couple of different places that there was a creation story about the founding of the city of Tenochtitlan and that there was a brother and sister, you know, and it was a fight for to see who would be the leader of this group of people.
00:21:05.320The fight was between the war sun god, Witzlopochtli, and the goddess figure, Malinosochi, who was a sorceress.
00:21:17.400And the priests were behind the war god, of course, and they kind of fixed things.
00:21:24.900So Malinosochi, the goddess, and her people ended up being abandoned by the brother.
00:21:33.680She was actually kind of like drugged and put into this dream state that she couldn't get out of.
00:21:40.180And therefore, the city of Tenochtitlan was founded by, you know, the sun, the sun god, basically, and the whole war god culture.
00:21:52.800Not to say that the goddess culture was less intimidating or war-minded, but I would think that a feminine sensibility would kind of balance out a little bit, the bloodlust, but she was no slouch either.
00:22:12.100and um and i'm thinking that she was probably the more powerful of the two but because she was0.92
00:22:20.480female she had to be thwarted she had to be stopped and it's like it you know with everyone
00:22:27.520the priest and and and um which is mostly the war god they wanted to have the dominant um they
00:22:35.440wanted the power so anyway so when i found out that and and i was thinking and and i'm not the
00:22:43.480first person to to think this that um it was it possible that the when the indigenous people saw
00:22:52.260malinale with cortez you know moving across you know what is now mexico moving across the land
00:23:00.560is it possible that they thought that she was like that returning goddess coming back to set
00:23:09.380things right and to assume the throne and kick Montezuma off his throne? I don't know. But when
00:23:21.160I read that there was this fight between the male and female powers way back when,
00:23:27.560my imagination just blew up well and that that makes me think of um just when you're talking
00:23:33.160about her her coming in and how people would have seen her which first of all it just would have
00:23:37.300been strange in their context and in many contexts in many cultures in the world to have this teenage
00:23:43.300girl in this position of authority and power but i'm thinking about i hope you know what i mean
00:23:49.340those those images that were done at the time those sort of like two-dimensional drawings of
00:23:54.960people it's cortez and then she's always huge like proportionately she's massive in these um
00:24:01.300were they it was the local people who drew those i think i forget but it's her and she's there and
00:24:07.300her the the garb the huipili i don't know how you say it people people who were recalling these
00:24:15.420scenes remember her as this outsized figure so that to me that would connect i mean as you do
00:24:22.080in your book like with with this goddess whose name is similar to her name in the first place
00:24:26.220right right yeah the name uh translates into wild grass flower yeah well it's like you know here she
00:24:35.240is you know one of their people backed by these white men predominantly white men with these
00:24:44.920strange weapons this armor they didn't they didn't have steel iron with these these dogs
00:24:54.480these huge dogs and horses they'd never seen a horse before it was like to them it was like this
00:25:01.760this strange giant deer another kind of monster so seeing seeing um a soldier mounted on this
00:25:10.160horse thing it was like a like I would think like looking at this two-headed beast and so it's like
00:25:16.700you know their their arms their lances their swords are flashing in the sun she's walking there
00:25:23.040and you know I'm thinking like you know the army behind her or something or someone sees you know
00:25:29.680how she's kind of like I don't think she's backed by this this strange force of men it's like
00:25:36.700what who is this and you know and and she's speaking for them you know she's she's communicating
00:25:45.560and so they're they're like completely and trying to imagine that it's just like wow who
00:25:54.500she must be she must be very powerful is is she a sorceress is she you know are they here to do
00:26:01.720her bidding like like what's like what's going on so there's you know there's some friction there
00:26:09.120of like like who who is this so I leaned into that a lot um and the whole goddess story you
00:26:18.920know I I pull it through from the beginning and it gave me an opportunity as I was learning about
00:26:26.400women's lives to, to, to develop what it, it might've been like to, to grow up in that society0.99
00:26:33.740with this, with a strong female, her mother is very strong and, and the women, the, the,0.99
00:26:41.140there's a midwife character who is, who is, who is very powerful. And I wanted to, to concentrate
00:26:49.660on, you know, I, you know, invented, there were priestesses in this time period, of course,
00:26:57.340there were priests, and I knew the priest went to a special place to learn. And I thought,
00:27:02.580well, what about the priestesses? So I invent the Temple of the 18 Moons, which also, I mean,
00:27:11.960getting back to my like, like what in this young woman's past prepared her for this role as
00:27:21.240interpreter and this ability to stand, you know, front and center with all of these alpha males
00:27:28.800who kind of, you know, were trying to sniff each other out and figure out, you know, what to do,
00:27:36.300how to do it. You know, Montezuma was a, was a, was a smart guy. I think he, he was smarter than
00:27:44.060Cortez as to like, why, why he allowed them to enter and to get as far as Cortez did is, is the
00:27:54.160million dollar question that no one, no one really knows why. And in my book, Malin Ali knows that
00:28:02.260at any any minute they can be wiped out you know it's like the ambassadors come and they
00:28:09.160and present Cortez with these you know these gold um discs silver all of these treasures and
00:28:17.420works of feather work which was more prized um and and fine cotton cloth more prized than gold
00:28:24.120you know and Cortez keeps asking where's the gold where's the gold and um you know he's promised
00:28:30.000It's in Tenochtitlan. We have to keep going. And, you know, and she's trying to convince them, you know, these gifts represent a great tribute to you and the king you say you represent.
00:28:45.020It's like any normal person would take these gifts and say, thank you very much and get
00:28:53.560up and leave the country and just, and leave, you know?
00:28:57.740But Cortez, I mean, they're the center of the world and everyone else must think we
00:32:52.460And again, the textiles were just magnificent.
00:32:58.420The embroidered cloth, like I said before, was more prized than gold by them.
00:33:06.080The artisans, the artisans who lived within Montezuma's palace complex, I mean, he had the jewelers and the metalsmiths and the mosaic workers and the feather workers right there, you know, working for him.
00:33:21.200working for the city and you know everything there was painted and the mosaics yes i would
00:33:29.240if i needed if i was able to go back in time i that's where i would want to go most definitely
00:33:34.780every everyone um they were just blown away they had never seen anything like it
00:33:40.560they had they had figured out like a plump they had a plumbing system in the palaces
00:33:45.860They had an aqueduct that brought into the city, you know, fresh water from Chapultepec. And, you know, Cortez makes note of the wonders there that, you know, we have nothing like this back home.
00:34:03.260You know, he admits it. And so does Diaz. They're both kind of like, you know, this is beyond anything that we've ever known.
00:34:18.760So, yeah, it's like the Spaniards were the backwards, the barbarians by far.1.00
00:34:27.880I mean, if you're going to get into that, which is kind of like probably not a good thing, but, um, yeah, they were, they were behind. Um, there was an etiquette that was followed. There were social graces. I mean, they, they were, they were just magnificent.1.00
00:34:43.180in my point of view it was just it was it was a it was a completely it was like a different
00:34:51.580it was just just a completely different world one one where beauty was expressed and and you know
00:34:59.980and there was a dark side to it too i was just thinking about so in your book like as in the
00:35:07.200life of the real malin ali like she's going she's different eras i guess i would describe it
00:35:12.900But, you know, she's living with her family and then she's taken away. And then there's this period of enslavement. And then there's the period where she is with Cortez, but then she's with Cortez in this city and then she's with Cortez in this city. Like she's kind of going from place to place. So when you were planning out the book, what would you think, what would be the through line? You know, so it's not just like in the Odyssey. It's like, now she's here, now she's here. Like to have connecting between the different places where she is.
00:35:39.700Like she's the, the through line really herself and her advances.
00:35:43.940So what did you think about when you were thinking about putting her in all these different
00:37:30.560She has an agenda and that she's going to use Cortes to get what she wants, which is to get to Tenochtitlan and to see Montezuma to get to the bottom of a mystery.1.00
00:37:44.900um she's and she's also seeking justice and vengeance but you know she gets a little cocky
00:37:51.500and as she kind of comes into some of some of her powers she gets a little cocky and she thinks oh
00:37:58.500i i know what i'm doing because i've got this all under control and you know the minute you say
00:38:06.080you know you put out into the universe that you've got things under control
00:38:09.660that um things things can go south you know things go bad really quickly and um and she's
00:38:18.640she's humbled you know during that process of understanding who she is her her her her gift
00:38:26.940you know her place in the world what she's able to manifest and what she's able to you know she's
00:38:34.680she becomes like the bridge between these two cultures. In my book, by accident. And it's a
00:38:44.340humbling that someone realizes, oh, I'm not that, I'm full of it. And I'm just, I'm as afraid as
00:38:52.380everyone else. And she turns to the goddesses for help. And she has to continue this quest.
00:39:00.600She has to find it within herself even after she learns that she's not as perfectly strong
00:39:08.860as she thought she was, and yet she has her magic from the get-go, and she knows who she
00:46:03.900and armies scattered like bones in the dust.
00:46:07.060Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.
00:46:14.980But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.
00:46:19.260This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.
00:46:22.740Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.
00:46:28.660This is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.
00:46:36.160This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.
00:46:41.000Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.
00:46:51.660See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.
00:47:52.260Matriarchal, you know, the stories of the goddesses are so magnificent.1.00
00:47:57.640And I'm thinking these stories came from, from someone from somewhere. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's here. It's, it's, it's with these, it's with, it's with the, these people, it's with these women.
00:48:12.000And I wanted her mother to be, she claims she's a descendant of the Toltecs, and the Toltecs were the people who brought the arts and writing and beauty and were also fierce warriors.
00:48:29.660All of the, you know, the artistic gifts, you know, to the people and the Mexica were quick to align themselves with descendants and the stories of the Toltecs to give themselves more prestige to value that, you know, their stories are now our stories as well.
00:48:54.260So I just wanted to, again, I wanted this to be a female-centric book because there are no stories, but the stories of the conquests are through the eyes of men and men's lives and soldiers' lives.
00:49:10.360And, you know, this guy did this and this guy did that. And God, we're here on a mission of God and we're the heroes and we're like, you know, amazing. And I was just like, no.
00:49:24.260I wanted this to be about the women. And I thought to myself, for her to be0.97
00:49:32.380standing there with such authority, I mean, you know, she's nervous. She's a little afraid.
00:49:41.720Who wouldn't be? But at the same time, you know, she's standing and she's communicating,
00:49:47.160she's doing what she has to do, and going even beyond that, using some magic to kind of
00:49:52.700to try to protect people and to try to, to lessen the impact of, of what this confrontation of the
00:50:01.740impact of this confrontation. But I was thinking for her to, to, to stand and to think that she
00:50:07.380can actually control this situation, control these men. She was raised by some strong,
00:50:15.900strong women and that there were strong women in her life who sort of who prepared her for this
00:50:23.560and i think it's that knowledge that you're you're you're and you're a descendant of this
00:50:31.380this this proud fierce line of of women you know ancestry is very important
00:50:39.440in the book and for Latinos in general, family is very important. You know, if there wasn't,
00:50:49.440I was going to give her and imbue her with this family of strong women, either related by blood0.87
00:50:58.700or by friendship. It's a sisterhood. And I think that kind of gave her the strength to move
00:51:07.660forward and, you know, remembering, you know, I don't know, but I've been in situations where,
00:51:12.980you know, I've gotten myself into this crazy predicament and, you know, I've heard
00:51:17.640my grandmother's voice in my head, my abuela saying something to me. And I'm like, you know,
00:51:26.660and it was, it was the thing that I needed to hear, to know for me to, to act out of all the
00:51:35.220things I was learning. It was just like, it was like her voice in my head. And I'm like,
00:51:40.160that's what she has too. She, she has the memory and she has the, the, the force of,
00:51:46.920of the women who came before her, um, in her veins. So she's able to, to accomplish what,
00:51:55.580what she's able to accomplish and step up to the moment. You know, she gets a little,
00:52:02.220as you know she things get a little very dicey for her anger takes control for a bit but yeah
00:52:10.340it's like her fierceness kind of transforms her and that was also a mission of the book it's like
00:52:15.200her transformation you know from from a from a little girl to a priestess to it's a constant
00:52:23.280transformation from one part of her life into another one role and and she's you know she's
00:52:31.020still the little girl, you know, at the end when she sees something that takes her right back to
00:52:39.660when, you know, she and her brother were, you know, playing together down by the river.
00:52:44.960I think it's such a perfect, like you're so passionate about her and this story,
00:52:49.520obviously. And I think it's so wonderful when someone with that passion
00:52:52.160writes a book about it because like, clearly like your heart is on the page and you can really feel
00:52:57.780that when you're reading the book. And I wanted to ask you because the publisher of your book,
00:53:03.340so it's Primero Sueño Press. I don't know if I said that right, which is just a new
00:53:09.400imprint that's highlighting these sorts of books. Can you talk about that?
00:53:14.080No, it's okay. It's like my editor, Michelle Edelman Mulligan. I had, I, God, I went through
00:53:21.840multiple versions of this book, just, you know, I'd been working on it for a very long time.
00:53:27.780And I felt like I'd finally gotten it into a place, well, over a period of time, I would, you know, send out queries to agents and nothing happened.
00:53:39.480And but that didn't stop me. I just kept working. I belonged to the same writing group for like 20 years.
00:53:48.220So I would show up, you know, I lived in the Chicago area.
00:53:51.520I would jump on the train, the Green Line, and go out to Oak Park, read my 10 pages,
00:53:59.240which was a big thing for me because up to that point, my background is in advertising.
00:54:05.120And other than, you know, doing presentations for clients, I had never read my own work
00:55:44.160Oh, yeah. It's a big, you just, you do not do that. And I said, nope, I'm not going to do that.
00:55:50.600That's crazy. And it got to the point where, gosh, I, you know, I did it and I didn't think
00:55:58.580anything would happen. And then something happened. And I was like, you know, I was
00:56:05.900not prepared um because i thought oh it's it's just nothing will come of it and i'm just gonna
00:56:11.720i'm just gonna keep working on this until i'm you know in in my you know 80s because i felt like
00:56:17.340i'm working on this story it's my journey too as far as like what it means to be what it means to
00:56:24.160be mexican i mean i'm mexican-american but during the course of writing this book i i know for
00:56:30.120certainty and i'm gonna cry now that my heart and my soul you know soy mexicana that i'm i'm mexican
00:56:38.800so um i mean i live this i feel like i she's still inside me um this character so it's quite
00:56:47.980powerful to see her out in the world right now and um the editor um michelle at um editor mulligan
00:56:57.200at Simon & Schuster, she, she saw what I was, what I had, what I had done and what I was,
00:57:05.180you know, attempting to do with this, with this, with this real life, you know, historical
00:57:12.340figure, you know, with this, you know, horrible, God, the mythology and the, what she's had
00:57:21.280to shoulder for centuries. She understood what I was trying to get at. And, and so everything kind
00:57:29.860of happened for me a little bit backwards. And during the course, you know, the imprint was
00:57:35.740Atria, which is a division of Simon & Schuster. And during, as I was like working on the manuscript,
00:57:43.280they gave her, they gave my editor her own imprint. And Primero Sueño Press, Primero Sueño is
00:57:51.280It's based on a poem by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, which I love that connection because
00:57:57.580here's another strong, powerful woman, intelligent and brave and courageous who also, in her
00:58:09.540way, bucks the system and carries out her own identity, her life, you know, with her
00:58:18.800writings and her books and is one of the most magnificent writers ever, as far as I'm concerned.
00:58:31.620So I don't know how you're going to take that and make it sound interesting, but it was crazy
00:58:39.720the way it happened. And like I said, I didn't think, I don't know, I would probably still be
00:58:46.900working on this but she's she's she's gifted and she i was i feel like i was still kind of trying to
00:58:56.600to play within certain boundaries um with that with i had i once i found an agent we spent a
00:59:07.260thanksgiving can taking god i think of my my earliest manuscript like 600 pages down to like
00:59:15.400four and then even you know working kept working our way down from that so it was it was a process
00:59:23.580it was it was um rewriting the the core of it was always there the magic was always there the
00:59:30.380embroidery threads coming to life it was always there the temple of 18 moons and the house of
00:59:36.120magical studies it was that was a constant and it was just like um people wanted like just more
00:59:43.880more and wanted to hear more even more from from the from the women so i was just like oh i'm
00:59:53.320happy to do that and to like sideline cortez a bit more and um and and to present montezuma as
01:00:03.540some as a figure who was like i said before was was very smart don't know why he didn't you know
01:00:11.220put a kibosh on the spaniards earlier and um um you know he he had he had he had a zoo he had an
01:00:20.600animal house he had a botanic garden he you know he he amassed this world of of of of texts and
01:00:30.780books and and talent and artisans and at the same time you know with a lift of an eyebrow he could
01:00:38.760have pulled together an army of of warriors to to stomp out and to destroy people i mean he he was
01:00:49.200he was he was intense and then dealing with cortez it's like no one was prepared for
01:00:56.360a people who had no boundaries you know and just like moved through i mean
01:01:07.460And Montezuma was considered like a man-god.
01:01:11.020And there are reports that they thought that maybe the, you know, the Spaniards, that Cortes was the, was like the second coming of Quetzalcoatl, which is also kind of ridiculous.
01:01:22.440I think after the conquest, people were like looking for a reason, like, why did this happen to us?
01:01:28.020you know um and it's like you know the the reason one reason you know that the cortez was the the
01:01:35.540second coming of the of this god figure that montezuma was hesitant to to to harm him and it's
01:01:43.180like i don't i don't think that was it in your book that's where i love that because that's sort
01:01:48.480of still sort of a widespread myth that that the people there thought that cortez was a god but
01:01:56.220that I love in your book, you're like, but what if people thought that Malin Alley was the goddess?
01:02:00.380I love that in your book, you inverted that kind of expectation. I just wanted to say, sorry.
01:02:05.640Yeah, no. Yeah. And, and she's working and he's working for her possibly. Um, yeah, I thought
01:02:12.580like I had this opportunity and, um, and this, this myth. And so I, I leaned, I leaned into that.
01:02:20.600um and you know the character starts to believe it which is a problem um and um doesn't work out
01:02:28.780yeah no i was just thought just like like what if what if my dad was a um my dad was a journalist
01:02:37.360and you know one thing one thing he would tell us over and over again is to ask questions ask
01:02:43.720questions. So from the get-go, I had questions. And, you know, when I would uncover some, you
01:02:52.540know, a bit of research or, or, or see something that really sparked my imagination, I'd be like,
01:02:58.380I like, what if just, you know, often running to, to, to build on that. But again, it's like,
01:03:06.800much of this is is is grounded in in the history that grounding gave me also gave me a sense of
01:03:14.720of freedom to kind of like to really reach and to and to um lean into certain themes and to lean
01:03:24.900into the magic realism and you know fantasy in in in a different way and and cross boundaries
01:03:32.340in my writing you know um because i was i was like can i it's can i do this and until someone
01:03:41.780unless someone told me no no you can't do that this is you can't do that in this book or it's
01:03:50.300like that doesn't make any sense it's like no everyone was just like more i was just looking
01:03:56.460at um just more information about your your editor and about this press and it just seems like
01:04:01.940such a perfect marriage of like again just like strong women supporting each other but also what
01:04:06.940I'm reading about about this press like the whole like it's launching I think your book is one of
01:04:12.960the first titles coming out from this imprint yes Primero Sueño Press and it's and it's about
01:04:18.160Malin Alley and that's just so perfect because this I'm just I'll just read for people so they
01:04:22.540know Primero Sueño Press will serve English and Spanish speakers seeking identity culture
01:04:27.620inspiration, entertainment, wellness, and personal development. The imprint will publish fiction,
01:04:32.480nonfiction with universal appeal that honors and plays with genre. And I mean, that's just
01:04:37.400what you're saying. And the way that your book plays with genre, it's so much within the context,
01:04:42.580like it fits within that magical realism that you see in so much like Latine storytelling and in
01:04:48.920books. But then, so you have magic, but it ties back to the culture that you were researching.
01:04:53.560so I love that they were just pushing you to put more of that in because it just it seems like
01:04:57.940that's exactly what this imprint is about and so your book found exactly the right home clearly
01:05:01.580yeah no I worked with my team predominantly women and they were my cheerleaders between you know my
01:05:11.740agent my editor and assistant editors they were just just marvelous and and at no point did I feel
01:05:22.460that i couldn't express myself the way i wanted that i i you know that i i felt safe
01:05:29.900um i felt safe with them um i felt that that this was a perfect home for for malin ali i it it it
01:05:40.920wouldn't the the sensibility the sensitivity and the the hunger to to to know more to go ahead
01:05:49.340And, you know, it's like, you know, I have sentences with, with names like Witzlapochli and, and Quetzalcoatl and I've, I've, you know, I have touches.
01:05:59.200I've, I use words in Nahuatl and, and there was, yes, like, like, like more.
01:06:08.440It's been an amazing experience for me to be embraced like that and to be valued like that and to have somebody working with me to make these words sing and to make it come to life, watching my grammar, watching my grammar back.
01:06:38.440Because, you know, I don't know about you, but sometimes I like, I get a little comma happy.
01:09:22.140and that means and it has a lot of other meanings there's a lot of other meanings in in there and
01:09:29.180I'm like nope it took us a while because it was a it was a group effort to to to be that bold
01:09:40.180and forthright and and just and to and to for that to to be the name of the book over the years I had
01:09:49.880had all of these the woman in the obsidian mirror i mean mirrors are are uh play an important part
01:09:57.660throughout throughout the story and you know mirrored images and and um you know mirror
01:10:02.900obsidian mirrors were used to um to see into the future and and all of this and all kinds of like
01:10:09.880you know kind of old old school romantic sounding names and titles and all this stuff and it was
01:10:17.140just like it was just kind of like coming around to it was like its own it was its own journey
01:10:24.080and and presenting no this is her story through her eyes what she's feeling her it's it's her
01:10:35.880and and it's it's like i said there's such power god just when i when i saw the book cover just
01:10:44.820seeing, you know, I was just like, oh my, it's, there's so much power.
01:10:51.800I just wanted to say that, like, I felt that power when I was just scrolling through a list
01:10:57.460of like upcoming books and I saw a book called Malinalli and that caught, if I had seen like
01:11:01.560The Woman in the Obsidian Mirror, I might've scrolled past that, but it said Malinalli.
01:11:05.300And I was like, wait a minute, that is that, is this, could this book be about this woman?
01:11:09.180And it was, so it called out to me. So it's a great title, I think.
01:11:13.620Yeah, that was a team effort to get there because, you know, yeah, I was like so inside the story that it took like, you know, the voice from over here to say, let's bring it back.
01:11:33.260And I'm like, perfect. But it's like, I'm so, God, I'm so thrilled that here we are, the first day of Women's History Month, to be talking about her.
01:11:47.160and you know i was thinking about how god the stars have lined up because in in in good ways
01:11:56.980and in in kind of scary ways because i it's like right now we're living in a in a time period
01:12:02.500where women are are can every god beginning of the year it seemed like every day it's like someone
01:12:11.100someone in the modern world, a woman was being vilified and scapegoated for something that
01:12:17.980went wrong. And it made me think of her, of Malinelli. And it's like, I mean, men will always
01:12:29.760do this, right? If there's, you know, it comes to authority figures, women with voices, women with
01:12:37.900power women strong women um who are out there communicating um to the world if if when something0.94
01:12:46.160goes amiss it's it's you know it has nothing to do with it's outside the the control of of women
01:12:54.500it's it's still it's still it's still our fault yeah so it happens over and over again you know
01:13:03.760And thinking about the systems, you know, the patriarchy and the machismo system and how Malinale has been, you know, used as an emotional, like a, I'm going to say, football, you know, the American football.
01:13:21.720And just depending on which way the political winds were blowing and what the mood was, you know, we need a figure that we could just project all of our hate onto, you know, hate that this conquest occurred, hate that, you know, things aren't going well.
01:13:44.600like whatever because you know there there has been no story there is no story of her she left0.64
01:13:53.060us nothing so it's like we can do whatever people feel like we can do whatever we want with her
01:13:58.340so um by kind of like putting a story out there and i'm i am not the first person to to look at
01:14:06.800her to consider her and frame her in in a different way women have been have been looking
01:14:13.940um chicanas mexican american women have been looking at her at her story you know since um
01:14:20.680the 70s and um remember i was looking going through my my library of books um i have a book
01:14:28.260the goddess of the americas which was edited by um anna castillo and it's basically writings on
01:14:34.980the virgin of guadalupe but throughout the book there are essays and poetry which which look at
01:14:41.500the indigenous, the Mesoamerican Pantean and, and, and, and, you know, talking about the,
01:14:47.400the, the goddesses and, um, the ancient indigenous version of the Virgin of Guadalupe
01:14:53.440is Tonantzin, you know, the, the, the earth goddess. And, um, it's, uh, now I've lost my
01:15:00.880point anyway. Well, just sort of the, the legacy of her story and how it, what I am thinking of
01:15:09.260now is just sort of how women in so much of history in so many places can be the scapegoat
01:15:14.460but then also you see these lineages like you're saying the like the Virgin Guadalupe and like
01:15:19.500women who are revered and respected and it's kind of like two sides of just kind of these
01:15:25.560legacies and neither of them is like looking at this person as a human being it's all just like
01:15:29.960what can she represent and to who and it's kind of positive in one side and it's negative in one
01:15:34.140side. But for me, like for Women's History Month, which I love that this is when your book, when
01:15:39.660we're having this conversation, when your book is coming out as well, is just looking at these
01:15:43.600were people. These were not mythical, magical goddesses. I mean, in your book kind of, but
01:15:50.780it's like, these were human beings with like good sides and bad sides. And they were just people and
01:15:56.440we want to celebrate them, but we also don't want to put them on such a high pedestal0.99
01:16:00.100that it's it's it's kind of meaningless yeah yeah like i said earlier it's like it's a woman in full
01:16:08.680um and it's uh like her i'm hoping you know um presenting a a a human a human being um who was
01:16:19.360was presented with one tragedy trauma after another and is is able to to to pull herself
01:16:28.500forward. I think it might be difficult for some people. It's like, oh my God, all this stuff
01:16:34.840happens there over and over again. And it's, it's, it's, it's hard, but you know, the, the, the lives
01:16:40.840of women, it is hard. I do think that it's for me doing this podcast, which just kind of keeps me
01:16:49.260always in this women's history mode when things are getting overwhelming or scary and intense
01:16:58.760like they are lately. I do find when I look back at the stories of people like Malinalee who lived
01:17:05.640through these seemingly impossible circumstances and kept going and you know whether it's a story
01:17:11.420of somebody who who is you know a queen or somebody who is a worker or somebody like her
01:17:18.140who is just trying to find her place in the world.1.00
01:17:20.180Like to me, to see like women who just keep going,
01:17:23.640even in the face of what seems like insurmountable odds,0.87
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