“Dear writer, the despair of a dream that will seemingly never be realized is real,” writes Alma García in her essay for our eighth annual celebration of debut authors over fifty who have recently published their first books. The essays that follow encompass tales of fate—both encouragements and setbacks—as well as stories of commitment, hope, nerve, confrontation, transformation, triumph, travel, revision, luck, self-confidence, and, of course, writing, always back to the practice of writing, which is necessary to pursue one’s work over the years, come what may. These first-time authors, who range from their early fifties to early seventies, remind us that time, and its inevitable passage, is a gift that enriches our personal and literary lives and that age can make us both robust and nimble, ready to persevere, to put words on the page.
ALMA GARCÍA
All That Rises • 48
BERNARDINE “DINE” WATSON
Transplant • 49
TOMMY ARCHULETA
Susto • 50
CHIN-SUN LEE
Upcountry • 51
DONNA SPRUIJT-METZ
General Release From the Beginning of the World • 53
ALMA GARCÍA
Age: 52. Residence: Seattle. Book: All That Rises (University of Arizona Press, October 2023), a novel exploring the entanglement of two neighboring families in El Paso, Texas, revealing unexpected alliances and the permeability of presumedly fixed boundaries as the cast of characters search for where they belong in the confluence of history, border politics, their homes, and the outside world. Agent: Stuart Bernstein. Editor: Rigoberto González.
I AM one of those people who was pretty much born a writer. I wrote my first story in kindergarten. By high school I’d cemented my reputation as that girl who writes, and exactly no one was surprised when I went on to double major in creative writing and journalism in college. I planned to have a first novel written—and published, naturally!—by the age of twenty-five.
When that age came and went I acknowledged I was a bit behind. It was understandable. I was working fulltime as a journalist, which was a sure recipe for mental exhaustion, and so eventually I made a leap of faith, left my job, and entered an MFA program. By my program’s end my first story was.
