Greetings, subscribers. I’m a fortunate writer with many wonderful writer friends. Today I want to introduce you to one of them: Nylda Dieppa. She recently published a second edition of her award-winning book, Alborada (Dawn): A Cross-Cultural Memoir in Poetry.
What is in Alborada (Dawn)?
This is the review I wrote for Amazon:
“What joy to welcome this second edition of Nylda Dieppa’s memoir-in-poetry. She invites us into her life with striking familial observations such as: ‘Old aunts in balcony rocking chairs, / praying the rosary. / Watching. / Mumbling blessings and curses.’”
“In her poetic stories we witness moments of pubescent bewilderment with early loves. As she matures, failings at love arrive. Throughout, nurturing family ties come and go. While this memoir is drawn in the context of her upbringing in Puerto Rico, it reaches across cultural differences to show a life’s rich chronicle in the collective experience of what it means to be a human being. I feel enriched by this soulful book that shows us beauty, pain, and the rewards of endurance.”
How Nylda’s Writing Journey Began
From her website, Nylda tells us: “I learned to read at three years old because I wanted to hang out with my beloved older cousin who went to my same preschool. My mother encouraged my reading by providing me with all sorts of books and my dad, a voracious reader, was a great example. As soon as I realized that writing could be a wonderful medium of expression, I started to write journal entries and poetry in my native Spanish and later in English and a bit of French as I got older. I never stopped writing since, even when I thought I had. But that’s another story!”
For more, visit Nylda Dieppa.
How Nylda and I Met
It turns out that Nylda’s brother, Jorge, and I were both Way Corps graduates and committed leaders for The Way International during the same time, 1970s – 1980s. Our paths probably crossed, I’m sure, at large meetings and the annual festival called The Rock of Ages, but I didn’t know him personally.
The most interesting fact is we both worked in The Way’s Research Department at Way headquarters in Ohio at different times: Jorge worked in the Translations section at headquarters during the early 1980s, but left in August, 1984, for a field assignment in Texas, just as I returned to Way headquarters from Florida that same August. If you’ve read my memoir, Undertow, you may recall some of this time period.
When I published Undertow in November, 2016, I sold it for the first month through my website, advertising it in a Florida writers’ newsletter called “Scribbles.” It just so happened that Nylda, a fellow Florida Writers Association member who facilitated The Maitland Writers Group, saw that ad in “Scribbles.”
When she purchased a copy of Undertow on my website, she sent a note saying she’d been looking for information about The Way because her brother had been involved with it. She told me his name, Jorge Dieppa, and asked whether I’d known him. I did know who he was from afar, although I never had the pleasure of sitting down with him to have a conversation.
In Orlando shortly after Undertow came out, a mutual writer friend introduced me to Nylda in person, and to our surprise we discovered we live only fifteen minutes from each other! Since then, we’ve had many a long conversation. During one of them, Nylda shared the sad and shocking news that Jorge, her beloved brother, passed away suddenly in 2015. It was a terrible loss for her and her family, and for those of us who knew him in The Way.
Since our serendipitous meeting, my friendship with Nylda has grown. We’ve helped each other through writing projects, family experiences, and ZOOM times during COVID. I’m very grateful for her warmth, empathy, and humor and feel inspired by her dedication to the writing life. Kudos to you, Nylda, for offering this wonderful memoir-in-poetry that invites us into your loving heart.
To get your copy, visit Amazon.com: Alborada (Dawn): A Cross-Cultural Memoir in Poetry eBook : Dieppa, Nylda: Books
Thanks for reading!
Next time we hear from my friend and naturalist, Peggy Lantz, in #5 Caring for Mother Nature.
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
Nylda Dieppa
Thank you for this beautiful post, Charlene. It touched my heart. —birds of a feather ? forever!
Charlene Edge
My pleasure, Nylda. I’m so happy to share your wonderful, heartfelt work with this blog’s readers.