Discovering unfamiliar places and learning new skills is one way to deepen your life knowledge for your work, but what about exploring within? Amarilys Rassler delves into her Cuban roots and childhood memories to create writing layered with authentic details and riveting emotion. Her story, Seis Dedos, Six Toes, is just one example of how she amplifies her horizons within and delivers a captivating story of a young Cuban girl in a poignant moment in history. It won First Place for Unpublished Short Story in the 2018 Royal Palm Literary Awards. Amarilys discusses tapping memory, the importance of writing groups, and her upcoming memoir in this weeks’s RPLA showcase.
Amarilys’s Writing Journey
I began to write after an experience, seeing Cuba from a cruise ship. It was a very emotional moment that came upon me unexpectedly. I first wrote out of pain and desperation, realizing that I had stuffed the grief of leaving the land of my birth without processing it. I wrote to heal and to honor my mother and father and the country we left behind. After writing a book about this I found I also desired to write about other themes, some of them faith based, inspirational ones. I have been a member of Florida Writers Association and Tampa Writers Alliance for over ten years. I was president of the latter for two years. I am a member of Word Weavers International and served, as vice president of our Tampa chapter, for two years. I am blessed also to belong to a small, close-knit group of writers. We call ourselves, the Bistro Group. We encourage each other and critique large portions of our work when we meet each month. I am very grateful for these writing fellowships. I am forever learning from them.
The Winning Entry, Seis Dedos, Six Toes
Logline: An eight-year-old, Cuban girl struggles to save the lives of her family when they hide a fugitive from the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
My story was inspired by three memorable true stories but also the setting is very important to me. My father lived, as a little boy, in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, where the story takes place, in a very poor home like the one of the family in this narrative. My father actually knew a little girl in his area called Seis Dedos, Six Toes, because of an extra toe. When, in 1960, my father was told his two daughters, ten and twelve, would be able to leave Cuba through Operation Pedro Pan, a United States clandestine program to help children escape Cuba, he took us to Pinar del Rio to see a relative, Tío Pancho, who lived in a bohio, a thatched roof home, with a dirt floor. He wanted us to see his roots, our roots, where and how he had lived. While writing this story I relived that visit and felt I became Cachita, the little girl in the story.
Read an excerpt of Seis Dedos, Six Toes here.
Two Truths and a Lie, Author’s Edition
Keep amplifying your horizon.
Write fast, keep going and don’t edit as you go.
Write to touch hearts.
The lie? Write fast, keep going and don’t edit as you go. That does not work for me. I always try to keep amplifying my horizon. Especially if I am stuck and having a dry period, I then do something else that is artistic. This was the advice of a speaker at one of the FWA meetings. He suggested we take acting lessons. I did and it helped! It turned out to be an amazing experience. The second advice, write to touch hearts.
Other Works by Amarilys
I am the author of the book, Cuban-American, Dancing On The Hyphen, used for the last three years by Oregon State University for cultural studies. My Cuban-American story, For the Love of Them, was published by USF’s Saw Palm Literary Magazine and one of my inspirational stories was published in the devotional, 21 Days of Grace. I have a story in the 2017, FWA anthology, What A Character and a poem published in FWA, 2018 anthology, Where Does Your Muse Live? I am the author of the Christmas inspirational book, The Chairs. I have also written an award winning story, The Rafters, and another narrative, Kissed by The Mouth of Truth, both used for acting out by an impromptu theater in our area.
Coming Next from this Author
Beyond the Veil, Encountering Demons is the memoir I am presently working to finish. It is my story beginning with me as a four-year-old girl in Cuba, stricken with polio in 1954, and taken by my occult-practicing grandfather to a psychic healer. It depicts my struggles afterward when I see into the spirit realm and begin my dangerous quest for answers about spirits and life after death.
Connect with Amarilys
To learn more about me, my writing and speaking, check my website, www.guavanewton.com. You can contact me through Facebook, Amarilys Rassler, and Twitter, @AmarilysRassler. You can email me at AmarilysRassler@gmail.com.
More about RPLA
The Royal Palm Literary Awards competition is a service of the Florida Writers Association established to recognize excellence in members’ published and unpublished works while providing objective and constructive written assessments for all entrants. Judges include literary agents, publishers, film producers, current or retired professors, teachers, librarians, editors, bestselling and award-winning authors, and journalists from across the nation. Entries are scored against the criteria set by RPLA using rubrics tailored to each genre. Winners are announced at the annual FWA conference during the RPLA awards banquet. To learn more about RPLA, click here for the guidelines.
