Kathleen Alcala

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About Kathleen Alcala

Kathleen Alcalá's life is all about stories. She is the author of four works of fiction - Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist; Spirits of the Ordinary; The Flower in the Skull; and Treasures in Heaven - and a collection of essays. Her work is the recipient of a Governor's Writers Award, the Washington State Book Award, a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and a Western States Book Award, among others. Kathleen teaches Creative Writing in the Low Residency MFA program at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island. Two of her stories are included in the recent Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. More at www.kathleenalcala.com.

"I began writing as a way to explain the world to myself. So much family history did not match the 'official' history of the Southwest, that I had to become an explorer, an adventurer, an ethnographer, a scholar and a writer in order to discover who we were and who we are today. I believe that writing, in and of itself, is a political act, and that the artistic cannot be separated from the political. Writing makes the invisible, visible; the silent, audible; the absent, present."

Quotes:

This is a book of wonders. Each story unfolds with humor and simplicity and perfect naturalness into something original and totally unpredictable. Not one tale is like another, yet all together they form a beautiful whole, a world where one would like to stay forever. The kingdoms of Borges and Garcia Marquez lie just over the horizon, but this landscape of desert towns and dreaming hearts, of lost sisters and ghost scientists, canary singers and road readers, is Alcalá-land. It lies across the border between the living and the dead, across all the borders - a true new world.
- Ursula K. LeGuin on Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist

Kathleen Alcalá captures the essence of the magical realism in her work. Her stories convincingly move the reader from one reality to the other. Kathleen's craft illuminates the souls of her characters: the Mexican women who carry the universe in their hearts.

- Rudolfo Anaya

Cristina Henríquez

Sandra Cisneros

Cristina Garcia

Sandra Rodriguez Barron

Isabel Allende

Virginia Grise

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Books By Kathleen Alcala

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Hotel Angeline: A Novel in 36 Voices May 3, 2011

by Garth Stein , Jennie Shortridge , Erik Larson , Julia Quinn , Jamie Ford , Kevin O'Brien , Susan Wiggs , Erica Bauermeister , Carol Cassella , Mary Guterson , Elizabeth George , Deb Caletti , Kathleen Alcala , William Dietrich , Karen Finneyfrock , Stephanie Kallos , Frances McCue , Suzanne Selfors , Craig Welch , Matthew Amster-Burton , Sean Beaudoin , Robert Dugoni , Jarret Middleton , Greg Stump , David Lasky , Kit Bakke , Dave Boling , Maria Dahvana Headley , Kevin Emerson , Clyde W. Ford , Teri Hein , Stacey Levine , Peter Mountford , Nancy Rawles , Ed Skoog , Indu Sundaresan , Nancy Pearl , Kathleen Alcalá

( 55 )

$10.99

Thirty-six of the most interesting writers in the Pacific Northwest came together for a week-long marathon of writing live on stage. The result? Hotel Angeline, a truly inventive novel that surprises at every turn of the page.
Something is amiss at the Hotel Angeline, a rickety former mortuary perched atop Capitol Hill in rain-soaked Seattle. Fourteen-year-old Alexis Austin is fixing the plumbing, the tea, and all the problems of the world, it seems, in her landlady mother’s absence. The quirky tenants—a hilarious mix of misfits and rabble-rousers from days gone by—rely on Alexis all the more when they discover a plot to sell the Hotel. Can Alexis save their home? Find her real father? Deal with her surrogate dad’s dicey past? Find true love? Perhaps only their feisty pet crow, Habib, truly knows. Provoking interesting questions about the creative process, this novel is by turns funny, scary, witty, suspenseful, beautiful, thrilling, and unexpected.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback

Latinx Rising: An Anthology of Latinx Science Fiction and Fantasy Jun 2, 2020

by Matthew David Goodwin , Frederick Luis Aldama

( 4 )

$14.99

It has been half a century since a few now-canonical Latin American writers introduced magical realism to the world. In that time, new generations of Latinx writers and artists have used that watershed moment as a springboard into new and bold explorations of speculative and fantasy forms. Collectively, they have found exciting new ways to delve into Latinx identities and cultures across genres. Latinx Rising, the first anthology of science fiction and fantasy by Latinxs living in the United States, exuberantly displays the full range of their art.

The new and established voices assembled here (including Kathleen Alcalá, Carmen Maria Machado, Ernest Hogan, and other luminaries) invite us to imagine a Latinx past, present, and future that have not been whitewashed by mainstream perspectives. As in the best mixtapes, this anthology moves satisfyingly through the loud and brash, the quiet and thoughtful. There are ghosts, space aliens, robots—and a grandmother who unwittingly saves the universe through her cooking. The result is a deeply pleasurable read that pushes beyond magical realism and social realism to demonstrate all the thrilling possibilities of what Latinx literature can be.

Other Formats: Paperback

Mrs Vargas and the Dead Naturalist May 4, 2012

by Kathleen Alcala

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$3.99

Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist is a collection of 14 stories set in Mexico and the Southwest. Written in the tradition of magic realism, each is a story of transformation from one reality to another. They are arranged roughly in chronological order from adolescence to old age (and beyond).
Like the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska, I have tried to tell the stories my characters would tell if they were writers. Most of the protagonists are women, some weak, some strong, but all driven by their connection to a power far more compelling than the restricted circumstances of their lives. Science fiction writer Joanna Russ told me my stories were important because I am writing about women whose stories would otherwise not be told.
I write about a culture in which miracles continue to flower in neglected inner courtyards, and old women grapple with the devil or converse with angels. Because these stories are difficult to classify by genre, they have appeared in magazines ranging from Calyx, a Journal of Art and Literature by Women, to Isaac Asimov's Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Half of these stories were published separately, and two nominated for the General Electric Young Writers Award.

Other Formats: Paperback

Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good Mar 26, 2019

by Catherynne M. Valente , Kathleen Alcalá , Betsy Aoki , Joyce Chng , Katharine Duckett , Anahita Eftekhari , Penny Stirling , D. A. Xiaolin Spires , Sabrina Vourvoulias , Octavia Cade

( 1 )

$6.99

Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good is a horror anthology of dark fiction and darker appetites, edited by Octavia Cade. Containing 22 stories of “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet, it features 22 fearless writers who identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity. It’s the third in the Women Up To No Good series, which can be read in any order.

It includes original stories by Kathleen Alcalá, Betsy Aoki, Joyce Chng, Katharine Duckett, Anahita Eftekhari, Amelia Gorman, Jasmyne J. Harris, A. R. Henle, Erin Horáková, Kathryn McMahon, H. Pueyo, D. A. Xiaolin Spires, Rachael Sterling, Penny Stirling, Sabrina Vourvoulias, and Rem Wigmore, and reprints of stories from Apex, Electric Velocipede, Fantasy, Lightspeed, and Nightmare Magazines by Chikodili Emelumadu, Crystal Lynn Hilbert, Catherynne M. Valente, Damien Angelica Walters, Alyssa Wong, and Caroline M. Yoachim.

Contributors are based in or hailing from Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, the UK, and all over the United States. Between them, they have won the Andre Norton, Eugie Foster Memorial, Hugo, Lambda, Locus, Mythopoeic, Nebula, Prix Imaginales, Rhysling, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice, This Is Horror, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards, and been shortlisted for the Bram Stoker, John W. Campbell, and Shirley Jackson Awards!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Kathleen Alcalá, “The Doll’s Eye”
Betsy Aoki, “And When We Die They Will Consume Us”
Joyce Chng, “Dear Son”
Katharine Duckett, “Gimme Sugar”
Anahita Eftekhari, “The Fool’s Feast”
Chikodili Emelumadu, “Candy Girl”
Amelia Gorman, “She Makes the Deep Boil”
Jasmyne J. Harris, “What the Bees Know About Discarded Girlish Organs”
A. R. Henle, “Strong Meat”
Crystal Lynn Hilbert, “Soul of Soup Bones”
Erin Horáková, “A Year Without the Taste of Meat”
Kathryn McMahon, “The Honey Witch”
H. Pueyo, “I Eat”
D. A. Xiaolin Spires, “Bristling Skim”
Rachael Sterling, “Alice Underground”
Penny Stirling, “Red, From the Heartwood”
Catherynne M. Valente, “The Lily and the Horn”
Sabrina Vourvoulias, “A Fish Tale”
Damien Angelica Walters, “A Lie You Give, And Thus I Take”
Rem Wigmore, “Who Watches”
Alyssa Wong, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers”
Caroline M. Yoachim, “The Carnival Was Eaten, All Except the Clown”

Other Formats: Paperback

The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island May 1, 2017

by Kathleen Alcalá , Joel Sackett

( 5 )

$21.80

As friends began “going back to the land” at the same time that a health issue emerged, Kathleen Alcalá set out to reexamine her relationship with food at the most local level. Remembering her parents, Mexican immigrants who grew up during the Depression, and the memory of planting, growing, and harvesting fresh food with them as a child, she decided to explore the history of the Pacific Northwest island she calls home.

In The Deepest Roots, Alcalá walks, wades, picks, pokes, digs, cooks, and cans, getting to know her neighbors on a much deeper level. Wanting to better understand how we once fed ourselves, and acknowledging that there may be a future in which we could need to do so again, she meets those who experienced the Japanese American internment during World War II, and learns the unique histories of the blended Filipino and Native American community, the fishing practices of the descendants of Croatian immigrants, and the Suquamish elder who shares with her the food legacy of the island itself.

Combining memoir, historical records, and a blueprint for sustainability, The Deepest Roots shows us how an island population can mature into responsible food stewards and reminds us that innovation, adaptation, diversity, and common sense will help us make wise decisions about our future. And along the way, we learn how food is intertwined with our present but offers a path to a better understanding of the future.

Watch the book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFG8MpTo_ZU&feature=youtu.be

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback

The Story of Mrs Vargas and the Dead Naturalist May 4, 2012

by Kathleen Alcala

( 1 )

$0.99

Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist – The title story, set in the Yucatán, describes the encounter between Mrs. Vargas and an ornithologist in search of a rare bird. Only, is the naturalist alive? Mrs. Vargas is left to set things right.

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