During the day she is a girl who codes health and claims data. During the early morning, lunch, breaks, evenings, and late night she writes the stories of her people. As a first-generation Mexican American woman, she has always written through the lens of a Latina who is surrounded by a spiritual intuitiveness and magic.
Her writing is influenced by her roots and the mysticism of Mexican culture. She is also the mom of several astounding children, daughter of an old-school Mexican mom, and wife to a D.C. high school principal, all of whom live under the same roof with her.
Agustine’s Mother
written by Lorena Ortiz
In Augustine’s Mother, Teresa, a young woman living in rural Mexico in the 1930s, is pregnant for the first time. She is bound to name her baby according to the tradition of the small town she has grown up in — a tradition that ensures prosperity or poverty for the child. This is the story of a young woman determined to break from tradition so that her unborn daughter has a better shot in the world.
© 2020 Lorena Ortiz | Recording © 2020 Rivercliff Books & Media. All rights reserved.
Read by Anni Sezate
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Q&A with Lorena
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