Kathleen Alcalá Quotes

American novelist, essayist, short story writer, teacher of creative writing

Kathleen Alcalá (born 29 August 1954) is the author of a short story collection, three novels set in the American Southwest and nineteenth-century Mexico, and a collection of essays.

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Alternative Names: Kathleen Alcala

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It was only in researching this work that history, in general, started to mean anything to me. Economics, the repercussions of the Civil War, the history of Texas, all made sense. Growing up in California, nothing we were taught seemed to have anything to do with us

Each of these women has a story. Each beat incredible odds to get where she is today. They, too, have given a helping hand to other women on the way up. That's what they have in common with the women of their grandmothers' and great-grandmothers' generations. They didn't stop worrying about equal rights and equal access when they made personal gains. They turned around and said, 'There's room for you, too.' ("Against All Odds," September 1992, Hispanic Women's Network, Olympia, Washington)

Fiction is all about that moment of transition from one to another state of being. If that metamorphosis doesn’t occur, the character doesn’t change. We, the readers, don’t change. This reminds me of Walter Benjamin, who observes that stories transform the storyteller as well as the listeners.

Writing about family history has taught me that much of who we think we are is based on the unexplainable. ("The Skeleton in the Closet" September 24, 2003)

In a way, artists are messengers between worlds, bringing ideas and symbols from one to the other.