The F Factor (29 page)

I
deas for this novel developed slowly during the years my own children experienced high school. Originally, I wanted to write about my positive teaching experience at an all-boys high school in San Antonio. As a young English teacher, I helped coach the speech and debate teams at Holy Cross High School and saw public speaking give the Latino boys practical skills as well as great self-confidence. Going to speech tournaments and winning their events inspired the boys to choose college majors like journalism, public relations, and political science. More recently a Holy Cross education and experiences with speech activities helped my son Nick write and present his ideas at a contest in Washington DC that earned him a college scholarship. However, it was my daughter's remarkable experience in the first Media Broadcasting class at Providence High School that inspired me to set this novel about speaking to an audience and building self-confidence into a more contemporary context.

My brothers, my sister, and I are the products of single-gender Catholic secondary education, as are my husband and my children. This novel is one way to honor the familial spirit and deeper sense of community that
comes from sitting in a classroom with students of your own gender. Honest, open class discussions, developing closer bonds with teachers, and discovering new talents in a smaller school atmosphere has helped many San Antonio students who are educated in Catholic elementary and high schools to become strong scholars and exceptional leaders.

This novel wouldn't have been finished if my daughter Suzanne didn't remind me constantly to “trust the process,” the same advice I gave her when she struggled with a college essay. I am blessed by my writing friends, Carla, Kathy, Judy, Katy, and Lupe, valuable readers who offered honest criticism and encouragement. Friends like Mary Lynne, Kathleen, Melissa, Janie, and Marina let me vent when the writing stalled. Younger writers like Amanda King, Melissa Vela-Williamson, Suzanne Bertrand, and Nick Bertrand gave me ideas for revision that helped shape authentic characters. I also thank the student writers in my creative writing courses at St. Mary's University who suspected the anonymous fiction scenes in the class workshop belonged to their professor but were still brave enough to write down honest feedback.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to Therese Fleming, an exceptional middle school teacher and a wonderful friend. She kept asking me to write another novel to share with “her kids.”

And as always, I am filled with deep love and gratitude when I think of all of my family, as well as the wonderful man who has been my husband, my best friend, and my source of laughter for thirty years. Nick calls me his star; he is my hero.

D
iane Gonzales Bertrand began writing in fifth grade while she was a student at Little Flower School. She wrote plays and skits, poems to share with her family, and even composed her first novel inside a spiral notebook. She taught middle school and high school English for nine years before she stayed home with her young children and started graduate school at Our Lady of the Lake University in 1989, after which she began to publish her poetry and essays in literary magazines. She desires to see more Latino families and their experiences represented in literature and writes the novels, picture books, and short story collections that she never found on bookshelves in the library when she was a child.

Diane was raised in an English-speaking home because bilingual books for children didn't exist. She is proud that many of her books can be enjoyed by readers of both English and Spanish, encouraging children to retain both languages. A list of her books can be found at
www.artepublicopress.com
.

Diane is Writer-in-Residence at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, where she teaches creative writing and English composition. She is married to Nick C. Bertrand, and they have two children, Nick and Suzanne,
both recent college graduates. Diane is an author who visits schools and libraries across the country to share her books, to encourage more families to write their own stories, and to encourage everybody to turn off the television or computer and read a book instead.

Fitting In

Anilú Bernardo

2005, 208 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-437-6

$9.95, Ages 11 and up

Accelerated Reader Quiz #35022

Winner, 1997 Paterson Prize for

Books for Young People and the 1997 Skipping Stones

Honor Award

Available in Spanish as:

Quedando bien

Anilú Bernardo

Spanish translation by Rosario Sanmiguel

2006, 240 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-474-1, $9.95, Ages 11 and up

Trino's Choice

Diane Gonzales Bertrand

1999, 128 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-268-6

$9.95, Ages 11 and up

Accelerated Reader Quiz #35007

Named to the 2001-2002 Texas Lone Star Reading List; “Best Book of the Year,” Young Adult category
, ForeWord
Magazine; and Recipient, Austin Writers' League Teddy Award for Best Children's Book

Available in Spanish as:

El dilema de Trino

Diane Gonzales Bertrand

Spanish translation by Julia Mercedes Castilla

2005, 144 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-458-1, $9.95, Ages 11 and up

Trino's Time

Diane Gonzales Bertrand

2001, 176 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-317-1

$9.95, Ages 11 and up

Accelerated Reader Quiz #54653

Named to The New York Public Library's
Books

for the Teen Age 2002

Available in Spanish as:

El momento de Trino

Diane Gonzales Bertrand

Spanish translation by Rosario Sanmiguel

2006, 192 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-473-4, $9.95, Ages 11 and up

The Ruiz Street Kids

Los muchachos de la calle Ruiz

Diane Gonzales Bertrand

Spanish translation by

Gabriela Baeza Ventura

2006, 224 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-321-8

$9.95, Ages 8-12, Accelerated Reader Quiz

#113860

Recipient, 2007 Skipping Stones Honor Award; Winner, 2007 International Latino Book Award—Best Young Adult Fiction-Bilingual; and Finalist, 2007-2008 Tejas Star Book Award

Upside Down and Backwards

De cabeza y al revés

Diane Gonzales Bertrand

Spanish translation by Karina Hernández Line

drawings by Pauline Rodriguez

Howard

2004, 64 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-408-6

$9.95, Ages 8-12

Special Recognition, 2005 Paterson Prize for-Young People, and Finalist, 2005 Teddy Children's Book Award

Desert Passage

P. S. Carrillo

2008, 192 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-517-5

$10.95, Ages 11 and up

Accelerated Reader Quiz #127758

El año de nuestra revolución Cuentos y poemas

Judith Ortiz Cofer

Spanish translation by Elena Olazagasti-

Segovia

2006, 128 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-472-7

$9.95, Ages 11 and up

Riding Low on the Streets of Gold

Latino Literature for Young Adults

Edited by Judith Ortiz Cofer

2003, 192 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-380-5

$14.95, Ages 11 and up

Windows into My World

Latino Youth Write Their Lives

Edited by Sarah Cortez

Introduction by Virgil Suárez

2007, 272 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-482-6

$14.95, Ages 16 and up

Recipient, 2008 Skipping Stones Honor Award

Chicken Foot Farm

Anne Estevis

2008, 160 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-505-2

$10.95, Ages 11 and up

Accelerated Reader Quiz #123847

Finalist, Texas Institute of Letters 2008 Literary Awards

Mi sueño de América

My American Dream

Yuliana Gallegos

English translation by Georgina Baeza

2007, 64 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-485-7

$9.95, Ages 8-12

Accelerated Reader Quiz #120117

Winner, International Latino Book Award—Best Young Adult Nonfiction–Bilingual

Rattling Chains and Other Stories for

Children

Ruido de cadenas y otros cuentos

para niños

Nasario García

2009, 160 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-544-1

$9.95, Ages 8-12

Creepy Creatures and Other Cucuys

Xavier Garza

2004, 144 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-410-9

$9.95, Ages 11 and up

A So-Called Vacation

Genaro González

2009, 192 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN-13: 978-1-55885-545-8

$10.95, Ages 14 and up

The Throwaway Piece

Jo Ann Yolanda Hernández

2006, 192 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-353-9

$9.95, Ages 11 and up

Accelerated Reader Quiz #108531

Winner, 2007 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People, Finalist;
ForeWord
Magazine's Best Book of the Year 2006; Named to The New York Public Library's
Books for the Teen Age
2007; and Winner, University of California, Irvine's Chicano / Latino Literary Prize

The Truth about Las Mariposas

Ofelia Dumas Lachtman

2007, 144 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-494-9

$9.95, Ages 11 and up

Versos sencillos / Simple Verses

José Martí

English translation by Manuel A. Tellechea

1997, 128 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-204-4

$12.95, Ages 11 and up

Named to the 1999–2000 Houston Area Independent School Library Network Recommended Reading List

My Own True Name: New and

Selected Poems for Young Adults,

1984–1999

Pat Mora

Drawings by Anthony Accardo

2000, 96 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-292-1

$11.95, Ages 11 and up

Accelerated Reader Quiz #47265

Brujas, lechuzas y espantos

Witches, Owls and Spooks

Alonso M. Perales

English translation by John Pluecker

2008, 96 pages, Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-55885-512-0

$9.95, Ages 8-12

The Case of the Pen Gone Missing

El caso de la pluma perdida