Austin Art Talk Podcast

“We all have creativity in us and we’re all very imaginative people but we also have all these voices that tell us we’re not. I just don’t give myself credit for it. I don’t think any of us do.” Novelist Natalia Sylvester (https://www.nataliasylvester.com/) says of her most recent book, she is writing for the people who have shared common experiences around immigration and know about being caught in between. These powerful and sometimes painful stories need to be out in the open so that the subjects and those like them know that what they went through has not gone unnoticed. But it’s not just about the struggles. It’s also the overlooked triumphs, courage, strength, and ordinary moments of daily life that need to be recognized. To re-create a world based on the lives of many you have to exercise your empathy, listen, and imagine what it must have been like. Some of the story though she doesn’t have to imagine because she lived it herself. Her family fled Peru in the late 80’s to get away from the violence,