ABOUT ALICIA ANABEL SANTOS
The Author
Alicia Anabel Santos is a writer, producer, playwright, speaker, activist, teaching artist, Afro-latina lesbian storyteller and priestess. In 2019 she launched LA SANTERA LLC, offering clients support as they deepen their spiritual practice. Most recently, she facilitated two original workshops, Healing Anti-Blackness and The Dark Room. She was born in Brooklyn and is a proud Dominican Writer. She is the founder of the New York City Latina Writers Group and the 2018 recipient of the BRIO Award (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) for fiction. She is a Cave Canem and VONA Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation alum. In 2011 she published her memoir, Finding Your Force A Journey to Love. Her one-woman show I WAS BORN was part of the ONE Festival in New York in 2010. In 2008, Anabel joined Creador Pictures as writer & producer for the documentary series Afrolatinos The Untaught Story. She is currently working on a historical fiction memoir where she merges prose, poetry and witchcraft, and is simultaneously working on “I.D.G.A.F: One Hundred Years of Rage,” a memoir. These days she can be found practicing brujería, reading tarot and facilitating writing workshops for senior citizens in the Bronx and Manhattan. She attended New York University and lives with her partner in the Bronx, New York.
ABOUT MY BOOK
Finding Your Force - A Journey to Love
Finding Your Force is a memoir written in the form of a love letter to a daughter. In this intimate conversation we journey into the darkest parts of Alicia’s soul. We walk with her as she digs deep underneath the ruins where all her secrets are kept. Santos is being called on an excavation to stop running and face those moments that have transformed her from surviving rape, healing through loss and coming out as a lesbian. This is a journey about life, death and rebirth. Alicia tells her daughter a story that is raw and heart wrenching. It is not a love story but definitely a story of love.
In 2011 I self-published my first work, Finding Your Force A Journey to Love. I started writing after the tragedy of September 11th. Many writers might tell you that what brought them to their craft was a specific moment. For me writing came at a time of so much confusion and uncertainty. The writer in me was born out of this fear that my daughter would not know the real me. It was important for me to leave her with something. It was important for me to share with her stories that show that I/we exist, that I/we matter and that I/she could dare to dream. I began my life as a writer by blogging about all the horrible things that happened in my life. My blog became the place where I could be in conversation with other creative spirits and work out all the crap life was throwing at me. I realized years later that I had hundreds of blog posts, over 1,300 pages of writing written over eight years. I took everything I had written off of my blog and turned it into my first memoir. Finding Your Force A Journey to Love became my writer’s cry. That work was a love letter to my then 18-year-old daughter about every fcked up thing I had been through. I would learn years later that it was in writing that memoir that I would really be free to write the things I was born to write. Through this work I found my voice and freed the little girl who was locked in closets. I am thrilled you have come to visit my author page. Having a place where I can share with you all that I love, my achievements, my successes, and my inspirations is a dream! In these pages you will find parts of my soul, my love work, my passions, my dreams, my writing and all the places where you can find me sharing my gifts with the world. These pages have everything to do with my life as a creative being, but what I am most proud of is being a Mother and the Writing Midwife!
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Thank you for taking this journey with me and for your constant love and support. Love, Light and much Aché for you!