About
Marta Elva’s first novel, American Tumbleweeds, was published and released by Circling Rivers in 2016. It was selected a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award that same year.
The American Tumbleweeds 2016 book tour included presentations and book signings at libraries and independent bookstores in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia; Barnes and Noble in Massachusetts, New Mexico and Texas; the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque Bookstore, and guest speaker at the University of Texas in El Paso during National Hispanic Heritage month.
Marta graduated from Emerson College in Boston with a degree in Communication. Her experience in television production and independent film spans over three decades. She retired in 2011 from WNET, the flagship station of PBS, in New York City. As staff writer and producer, Marta received several regional Emmy nominations for Arts Programming, hosted by actresses Cherry Jones, Lynn Redgrave, and musician Wynton Marsalis. Prior to working at WNET, Marta was part of the National Geographic team who developed and produced the first children’s series, Really Wild Animals, hosted by actor Dudley Moore. The highlight of her independent film career was working on Passion Fish, directed by John Sayles.
Marta served on the Council of the Writers Guild of America East in New York City, and remains a member of the union representing screenwriters for the film and television industry. She is also a member of the Authors Guild.
Marta Elva Gibbons resides in Matlacha, Florida. She’s proprietor and manager of Matlacha-Cottages, a successful hospitality business she and her husband, Michael, opened in 2012.
Featured Work
American Tumbleweeds
Set in the borderland of El Paso, Texas, and Juárez, Mexico, American Tumbleweeds tells the bittersweet story of a Mexican-American family’s struggle to stay together as tradition collides with the social upheaval of 1960s America.
This is the story of every family—for every family lives on borders of some kind—loving and clinging, wounding each other deeply while comforting each other in the soul-deep ways that only families can reach. American Tumbleweeds captures poignantly the growing pains of a young girl and of all immigrants whose dual cultural identities lend them both strength and strife.
Poised between two countries and between childhood and adulthood, thirteen-year-old Inez must choose whether to make the dangerous leap her parents never quite made, the leap faced by every new American: letting go of the old country to embrace a new destiny in the United States.
The old ways cherished by her beloved Mexican grandmother offer refuge from the turmoil her family encounters after Inez’s father gets arrested for smuggling marijuana into the U.S. But life in El Paso is far more exciting, as mini-skirts, rock music, and the sexual revolution shatter tradition on both sides of the border.
Says Sonia Manzano, "Maria" of Sesame Street: "This is an experience all Americans should know about."
Other Works
Awards and Recognition
- Finalist for the Sarton Women's Book Awards for 2016
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