NANCY G VILLALOBOS

I started writing in fifth grade when my teacher, Mrs. Decker, told me I was a writer. The first piece I wrote that attracted some attention was a poem about my high school summer in Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico. That is to say, it attracted the attention of the other students who went on the same program. All seven copies have been lost, and my memory can only dredge up a few random lines of that first satisfying attempt at capturing a life-altering experience on the page. After that, apart from reporting and writing a gossip column for The Centralian, my high school newspaper, I didn’t write for pleasure. It wasn’t until my junior year in college that life presented me with the rich trove of opportunities for writing that forms the basis for my current memoir. In 1965 I participated in the Indiana University Junior Abroad in Peru Program. My book chronicles the highlights of the twenty years I spent in Lima after I married the son of my host family, Rolando (Tito) Villalobos.
 
I’m active in the vibrant San Diego writing community, attending conferences and read and critique writing groups. Excerpts of my memoir have been performed twice in the Annual Memoir Showcase, put on by the San Diego Memoir Writers Association, and two have been published in the Showcase anthology Shaking the Tree. In 2018 another excerpt appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Empowered Woman.