Lisa M. Bradley

Grow up Latina in South Texas. Look across the Rio Grande and wonder what makes those plants trees goats people Mexican and these American. Do not arrive at satisfactory answer. Watch lots of horror movies with Grandpa. Become known as a "good writer" without understanding why. Yearn to escape the Valley. Try vegetarianism. Wear lots of black, listen to grunge and heavy metal.

Go to the University of Iowa. Experience culture shock. Wonder if you brought the border with you. Start learning about racism, for real. Sell some poetry. Think about applying for the Writers' Workshop but chicken out. Keep writing anyway. Get degrees in English and Philosophy. Fall into copyediting. Find writing groups. Meet folks who'll be published novelists long before you. Learn from them. Also, become a vegetarian.

Stay in Iowa to raise a child who never sleeps (she must be part fey). Experience post-partum depression bordering on psychosis. Go on meds, go off. On off. Realize you weren't "emo" in high school or "intense" in college: you were depressed. Stay on the meds. Keep writing.

Explore the Midwest. Crisscross the Mississippi like it's a line on a map while listening to gothic country. Exult in being published in venues like Strange Horizons, Cicada, Stone Telling, Weird Tales, Goblin Fruit. See the Grand Canyon while wearing your Dia de Los Muertos shirt. See Niagara Falls with your rapidly growing daughter (wonder how she has survived you, remember she's part fey). Point across the Falls at Canada for her. Talk about borders. Think about passports.

Get a passport. Dream big. Plot. And always keep writing keep writing keep writing.