.Writers.on.Writing.
Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.
.W.o.W. #32
María Elena Montero
What does your inner writing voice tell you?
Say everything.
Describe an early experience where you learned that language has power.
My second-grade teacher was obsessed with having her second grader, my classmate, learn Spanish. So, she arranged “play dates” that were really undercover tutoring sessions. My directive was to speak only Spanish. I learned quickly the more I engaged in conversation—no matter the subject—the longer our playdate, which sometimes involved cookie making to translate the ingredients and the process. For a second grader . . . it was everything.
What is the first book that made you cry?
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison . . . still makes me cry.
María Elena is an AfroLatina of Cuban-Dominican descent and fluent in Spanish, rumbao, and bachata (not necessarily in that order). She is a Yellow Arrow 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee; we are so proud of her!
You can find María Elena at meechiemail.com and her CNF “Four Quarters” in Yellow Arrow Journal’s Vol. VI, No. 2 issue on ANFRACTUOUS. She also took part in “An Exploration of Belonging: The Anfractuous Reading.” Find her part below. The full reading is available on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel.