Maria Espinosa
Maria Espinosa is an award-winning novelist. She was born on the East Coast but has lived in California most of her adult life. For the past eight years she has lived in Albuquerque. Many years ago she self-published two chapbooks of poetry, Love Feelings and Night Music. She mailed them to Anais Nin who responded. “They are... direct and rich in feeling—rare today— /Don’t let people tell you anything is too personal. I was accused of that for twenty years. Espinosa's later publications include four novels: Dark Plums, Longing, Incognito: Journey of a Secret Jew, and Dying Unfinished In addition, she published a critically acclaimed translation of George Sand's classic autobiographical novel, Lelia. Her latest novel, Suburban Souls is forthcoming in 2020 with Tailwind Press.
Twitter: @paulamariaespin.
Do you speak a second language? Do you think differently in that language? Does it influence your writing?
I spent two years living in France. On a cold November day in Paris I wandered into a cafe for a warming cafe citron. There I met the man I would later marry. I was lucky that I'd had years of studying French in school. We had even put on a Moliere comedy—in French to the bemusement of the student audience—which furthered my ease with the language. Nonetheless, for the first few weeks in France people's speech all blended into a confusing whirl of sound. Then suddenly the words had became clear. My husband was Chilean. As he spoke little English and I spoke little Spanish, we communicated in French. Our daughter's first words were in French. I found that in speaking this language, my thoughts would take on a a slightly different form, molded by the language itself and the culture.
Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance?
I love to dance. In addition to the sheer pleasure of movement, dance can also be a way of somehow articulating my thoughts. I like to sing while I strum the guitar, which I don't do very well. I also like to sketch, often quick sketches of strangers.
What piece of clothing tells the most interesting story about your life?
In 1970 my husband's family sent me a poncho. It had been hand woven by an unknown woman in a Peruvian mountain village. It is of soft thick llama wool in rich red and brown and gold earth tones. It is waterproof, no matter how heavy the rain or snow. For fifty years it has survived in various closets through innumerable moves, and it remains intact, unstained, unworn, undamaged in any way. Later the village was swept away in a flood. Only this remains.
What brings you great joy?
I think of a perfect moment as if it were a crystal that dissolves and still lives in memory. Silvery dark ocean waves glistened. I waded, then plunged into a wave and swam. The cold was bracing. Afterwards I lay on the sand, while the sun warmed me. There was the clean salt air and blue sky overhead. It was late afternoon on a quiet beach. The ocean became calm. Such joy – such happiness. I wanted to save the world!
What period of history do you wish you knew more about?
When I visited Greece for the first time it felt familiar, as if I had lived there before. My father was a sculptor, and he introduced me to ancient Greek art. I loved the wonderfully detailed realistic—if idealized-depiction of human beings and animals.
I am especially drawn to the Golden Age of Greece between approximately 500 – 300 BC. That was the era that produced the Acropolis, Socrates, Plato, classic dramatists, mathematicians, poets. Athens was the center of culture. I wonder what it would have been like to have lived in Athens at that time where there was such a spirit of rich creativity. However, it was a misogynist culture. Women were generally kept at home and in separate quarters. Excepted were hetaeri, or courtesans, who participated as men's intellectual and artistic companions. So much would have depended upon one's birth, sex, age, class, whether soldier or artisan, master or slave.
