Dear\u00a0FabFitFun,<\/p>\n
Picture it: me\u00a0as I took\u00a0a walk in Tallahassee, Florida.\u00a0To\u00a0my left, the sunset;\u00a0its light rays reminded\u00a0me of all the golds: rose, green, yellow.\u00a0And to my right, the sky stretched open and cloudless in blue. It was an\u00a0endless blue, and for some reason still mysterious to me, as I looked at that endless blue, I had an idea. I imagined\u00a0a spacecraft in that sky. An extraterrestrial craft, to be precise.<\/p>\n
I knew the spacecraft would crash, sending\u00a0dust and sparks\u00a0up like spirits.\u00a0I knew\u00a0the only passenger was an undocumented immigrant.\u00a0And\u00a0I knew she was looking for her daughter.<\/p>\n
A little while later,\u00a0another image arrived.\u00a0That daughter, reading a letter in class to a boy who\u2019d been hateful to her. I knew these were scenes from the same story, and I had to sit down and figure out how they connected.<\/p>\n
I started\u00a0Sia\u00a0Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything<\/em>\u00a0when my son was ten months old. I opened up\u00a0a\u00a0notebook from Target I got\u00a0during a\u00a0back-to-school\u00a0sale and wrote longhand as\u00a0he\u00a0breastfed.\u00a0I\u00a0wrote as he napped,\u00a0and\u00a0when he decided napping was no longer for him,\u00a0I pulled up a chair next to the kitchen sink to write as he bathed.<\/p>\n Sia\u00a0Martinez<\/em>\u00a0became more than a labor of love for me. It grew into a story that revealed so many truths I hold close to my heart: the idea that this whole universe is holy. That all people and creatures are deserving of our respect. And that the bond between mother and child is fierce\u00a0and unwavering.<\/p>\n Sia\u00a0loves her father and her best friend and lighting candles in the desert to guide her mother home.\u00a0Sia\u00a0is powerful, angry, and wise.\u00a0I hope you love her as I have come to love her. I hope her story startles you into remembering the\u00a0wild\u00a0magic of this world.<\/p>\n Happy\u00a0reading, P.S. Want to chat with fellow literature enthusiasts?\u00a0Use code\u00a0FLORALS<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at checkout for 20% off your first box and to join the Book Club in our Community where members will follow along a reading schedule, do deep-dive discussions into each chapter, and more! You can purchase the book at the retailers below:<\/p>\n
\nRaquel Vasquez Gilliland<\/p>\n\n