Book Review: Latina Authors and their Muses by Mayra Calvani

I volunteered to read and review this non-fiction book. First off, I didn't like the format of the book. It is a collection of one interview after the other. While it is okay to read an interview, this many was a bit of a challenge. The author interviewed 40 Latina authors.

What I should have done, and only realised this about 40% through, was to check the table of contents first to see if I knew any of the authors being interviewed. Not personally of course, but knew as in have read any of their books.

I wasn't familiar with the majority of the authors, purely because I don't read in their genre. I did find one author who happened to be a favourite of mine, Caridad Piñeiro. I love her books and skipped immediately to her interview.

I would suggest that you do the same if you want to read this book.

From the interviews I did read, and I read many of them in detail, the authors were forthcoming in their answers. Their words could serve as inspiration to many young and new authors, and not only if you are of South American descent.

The interviews showed that even though these Latin ladies are published, and many award-winning and best-selling authors, their struggles would be familiar to many authors or aspiring authors. I quite liked their comments on their muses. Despite their sometimes humorous take on the muse, it is clear that inspiration is only a small part of the story and hard work the true way to get things done.

If you are looking to read a book about how real authors deal with the daily grind of producing stories and how they got to be where they are today, this will open your eyes to what the real life of a writer is like.

I give it