Perdidos en un librero

In my own words

I have told before how my first children's story came about thanks to the writer Magaly Sánchez Ochoa. Inventing that story "to order" opened wide roads. The characters who came to help me tell that first tale later decided to stay and keep me company. So the least I could do to repay both their births and their presence was to give them more adventures, new stories.

And so Brujito Sombrero, Othar, the wand Magina and the doll Amalia have gone travelling (so far) through two books, one of stories, and a novel. Here, for the first time, after a long time and a great deal of effort, the first book in which they are the protagonists from start to finish is published. True to my habit of paying homage to masters and predecessors, the adventure takes place inside a magic bookcase and, specifically, in the pages of Samuel Feijóo's book of Cuban mythology.

Another fruit, which I hope to make tangible soon, is that new characters (Captain Gallardo Grillo, the knight Goliath Hirsuta, and their respective love stories) also came to ask me for their pages. For now, we are trying to please them. May they see the light one day as books and published stories.

Before this, as an essential testing ground, several friends read some of the stories with these characters to their children. To my delight, the results were good. I even remember the anecdote, which I posted on my social media, of a girl who put together her own version of my story and made it hers, new, in an unlikely remake with her dolls and toys. A reward like that makes it worth writing, going on writing, and facing all the swells and seasons of publishing.

So, with this one published, we mark one down, and keep on counting...

ALS