About
Mestiza Latina poet, author. Psychoanalyst, post-trauma recovery specialist / first repsonder... 1970--present. Raised in immigrant, deportee, and war refugee families. 'Living in a tiny village, population 600, I was lucky beyond fortune to grow up with dedicated famers, fisher people, fruit tree growers and vegetable crop growers who kept the old ways. I found such beauty in the blessed flora and beings in the 'outback' northwoods and the great inland ocean, Lake Michigan.
'After 20 years of sending my first manuscript to big publishers, with 42 rejections, finally first published in 1992. I was a 46 year old mother who tried to never give up. It was not easy to work 3 part time jobs, raise kidlette, go to school full time. But truly where's there's a will, there may very well be a way or ways through. And not just adequately, but solidly.'
'Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype: NYT Bestseller List 144 weeks. Published in 42 languages. First recipient 'Joseph Campbell Keeper of the Lore' award. Las Primeras Award [First of Her Kind], from Mexican American National Women's Foundation/ Washington D.C.
'Managing Editor of 15 international journalists at themoderatevoice. com , a 18 year old news, politics and lifestyle site read by the public, and movers and shakers from mainstream media::: NYT, WaPo, BBC, LAT, Chi-Trib, and more.
'Creator of the Estés International Post-Trauma Recovery Protocol, translated into many languages and used to train, [pro bono], community members at disaster and massacre sites, to be solid helpers to the people after first responders go home. 'Currently training persons from Uganda who are helping former child soldiers, who are now in their thirties and fourties. We are also attached to projects of post trauma recovery in Congo and Nigeria, France, Mexico, and across Canada and the USA.'
Featured Work
Women Who Run with the Wolves, Myths and Stories of The Wild Woman Archetype/; Untie the Strong Woman [on Our Lady of Guadalupe]/; The Gift of Story/; The Faithful Gardener/; The Collected Works of Brothers Grimm
Influenced as a young person by the works of Friere and Martin-Baró, Women Who Run with the Wolves offers an assessment of, and ways of release from over-acculturation and unquestioned submission to societal oppressions of women's gifts -- as taught by too many overcultures in the world. I think my works would most accurately be understood as Liberation Psychology, in which I strive to offer a multi-ethnic, rather than a flattened out [rote] western view of health, creative life, freedom to live fully in the ideations of the body, soul, spirit, mind, and heart.
Other Works
Awards and Recognition
- First Joseph Campbell Keeper of the Lore Award. Recipient of the Las Primeras Award from the Mexican American Women's Coalition [MANA] Washington DC. The Gradiva Award form the National Institute of Psychoanalysis: New York City.
