This is without a doubt, my biggest flex. And it will forever be my biggest flex.
When I was fifteen I had an idea. I was about to fall asleep when I thought about soup! Not just any soup, but asopao’, a delicious Puerto Rican stew that happens to be one of my favorite meals. Like all of my random ideas, I wrote it down: an idea for a children’s book based on cooking said asopao’. I didn’t give it a second thought and went back to sleep.
Sometime after that, I was talking to my cousin Mariana at a family dinner, and I told her about my idea. I kind of laughed it off but she took it seriously, she looked me in the eye and told me I simply had to write it, it was too good to pass up. My parents were on a business trip to Colombia at the time, and I would be staying with her that night. So as soon as we got home, we wrote the first draft of “Amalia’s Asopao”.
I told my mom about it when she got back, and she (like Mariana) told me it had to be done. So she got me a meeting with one of her best friends, Stella, who is a children’s book author. I told her all about my idea and she too, told me it was great, I then printed out the draft I had previously made for her to correct it. About a week later, she handed it back to me and told me there was nothing to correct. (Regardless, I made like five more drafts)
Now, the story was written, but what’s a children’s book without illustrations? I’ve been taking art classes my entire life, but I knew someone else should illustrate it, or else I would procrastinate. So I grabbed my best friend Paula and dragged her with me to our art classroom and on the way I told her about my idea. By the time I was done, we had made it to our destination. I asked my art teacher if there was anyone from our school she believed could be my illustrator. She told me that all of her in-school students were too busy, but she had a student outside of school who might be up to the task. She gave me her number and sometime later, we had our first meeting.
That’s how I got to know my amazing illustrator, Sabrina. Immediately I knew she could bring Amalia and her family to life. And after many Pinterest board exchanges, many many texts, quite a few meetings at our local bakery, and a couple of months later. Amalia and her asopao’ had color, faces, texture, and most important of all: an identity. I remember, my mom and I were driving back home after beach tennis practice when Sabrina texted me one of the finished pages. I just squealed in joy, the level of satisfaction of an idea coming to life in front of my eyes is something I had never experienced before. The immense sense of pride I felt from just a taste of what this project would become is a feeling I will forever be chasing and one, I can safely say, is addicting.
Now, we had words and drawings but it was not yet a book. That’s when we contacted the amazing guy who would put it all together, Carlos. We’ve never actually met but the project could not have been done without him. He’s the one who created the pages themselves and put them into a format that could be accepted by Amazon for printing. An endless amount of emails and back and forth of “Could we change this?” “Could we add that?” later, I received a PDF of my first book.
In between all of this, a million other things went down. But mainly, one question remained unanswered. Who was this all for? I knew from the beginning that this wasn’t something I searched to make a profit of. Instead, something I wanted to help others with, this would be my contribution to society. We considered a hundred different charities and non-profits I could work with but none of them clicked. Then, my mom found this program called: Mochila Alegre, a branch of El Banco de Alimentos de Puerto Rico. The program provides backpacks filled with food to children ages three to twelve who suffer from food insecurity and depend on their school canteen for a meal. I found their email and, with my fingers crossed, quickly wrote a proposal.
The director was absolutely lovely! I even found out she graduated from my school, and she got me in contact with Mari Jo, who is in charge of the Mochila Alegre program. We scheduled a phone call. I practiced what I would say with my mom, had a notebook with my “lines” in front of me just in case I forgot (If you can’t tell, phone calls freaked me out) and I was sitting by the phone fifteen minutes beforehand. Our conversation was short, sweet, and simple. She loved the idea, she wanted us to work together, and we would meet a week from then in their facilities.
So in seven days, I changed in the school bathroom into my business clothes (Levi jeans and a Djerf Avenue button down if you were curious) and drove to their office. During the meeting, I was so nervous I barely spoke (thank God my mom was there). But it was amazing! I immediately knew this is where I wanted the profits to go, it was a perfect fit.
We continued with back-and-forth emails on what ideas we had to boost sales and promote the book. We had more meetings and kept brainstorming, and before we knew it, the book was ready for printing. So on a random Wednesday, I posted the announcement on Instagram. The response from my family and friends, and the community in general was just a whirlwind of love and support. And also, some disbelief, my friends asked me: “A children’s book? What? How? When?” and I would just say “Well, I had an idea one night, and a year later we’re here”.
Of course, I omitted some details, the idea was the easy part. That was four weeks ago and since then we have sold a little under 200 copies, partnered with our local Macy’s, been in one news article, and arranged book readings in four schools. There’s still a lot more to go, for instance, I’m going on TV tomorrow. I’m extremely nervous so I’m kinda writing this to hype myself up. Though by the time this is published, the interview will have already aired (Future me: How did we do?!).
But! This is only the beginning. The first of (hopefully) many books. The first of (fingers crossed) many articles. And the first of many contributions to my community.
Love,
A children’s book author
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