Mona Alvarado Frazier

After decades of working with incarcerated youth and raising three kids as a single parent, Mona is fulfilling her passion for writing fiction. She is a member of SCBWI, Macondo Writers, and a co-founder of #LatinxPitch, an annual Twitter pitch event. Mona’s novels feature diverse characters in historical and contemporary fiction. She writes to amplify the voices of underrepresented women.

Instagram: @M.AlvaradoFrazier

Favorite non-reading activity? 

Watching K-dramas, especially those of the Joseon Period, like Mr. Sunshine and Under the Queens Umbrella. Both female protagonists fight against oppressive systems, whether it’s an invader in their country or the hierarchical structure of the period. I also like the second chance at romance and the non-gory detective series. Korean food, traditions, and culture fascinate me.

Not all books are for all readers… when you start a book and you just don’t like it, how long do you read until you bail?

I give it ten pages if I borrow a book from the library. I read the first three to five pages if I intend to purchase a book. I don't buy the book if I’m not looking forward to reading the subsequent paragraphs. Something in the writing has to pull me in: setting, description, a story question, or the voice of the narrator or character.

Is your go-to comfort food sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing?

I’m a sweets person, specifically dark chocolate bars, hopefully with slivers of nuts. The only chocolate food I make is once a year at Christmas time. It is a thick, creamy hot chocolate drink from Mexico called Champurrado. I make it with Mexican chocolate, raw brown sugar, cinnamon sticks, anise, and masa harina, the corn meal used for tamales and corn tortillas. Food doesn’t inspire my writing because when I’m eating, I’m not writing.

Is there a work of art that you love? Why? Have you ever visited it in person? Selecting one piece of art is like choosing one book I love. I love a lot of art and many books.

I enjoy art museums and make it a point to visit one every time I travel. I like Monet and visited the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris to see his eight gigantic murals of water lilies. I love Frida Kahlo’s artwork and attended several exhibits. I also love Patssi Valdez’s work and have a print of “The Writing Room,” which is vibrant and alive.

If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme? 

A museum of women writers and artists who produced works under male pseudonyms. Here are a few author examples:

In 1804, Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin published under the name George Sand and became one of 19th century France’s most celebrated novelists and memoirists.

In 1836, the 20-year-old writer Charlotte Brontë sent a selection of her poetry to Poet Laureate Robert Southey. Southey’s response: "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be." She began using the name Currer Bell. Her sisters adopted male names too.

Mary Ann Evans employed the pen name of George Eliot and published Middlemarch in 1871.

Almost 100 years later, women authors still used male names. Alice Bradley Sheldon won a Nebula award under the name of James Triptree Jr. She first published in 1967.

In 2015, Catherine Nichols submitted the same cover letter and manuscript to literary agents using a male pseudonym—and found that doing so resulted in eight and a half times the number of responses she had received when she used her name.