Vanessa Micale was our Writers Mentorship Program's 2023 Adult Non-Fiction Mentee.
The Latinx in Publishing Writers Mentorship Showcase series features excerpts by our Class of 2023 mentees from the projects they’ve developed with the guidance of their mentors.
The LxP Writers Mentorship Program is an annual volunteer-based initiative that offers the opportunity for unpublished and/or unagented writers who identify as Latinx (mentees) to strengthen their craft, gain first-hand industry knowledge, and expand their professional connections through work with experienced published authors (mentors).
Below is an excerpt from one of our 2023 mentees, Vanessa Micale:
Mateo swept up to Sol’s side. She caught her breath. The seal winked and dove out of sight. Mateo asked if Sol would like to sit on his shoulders. She nodded yes. He lifted her up. The wet seaweed slapped the back of his knees as they walked. The sky was fire red, bruise purple, pink.
Back at home, they ate spaghetti quietly. It was a dark night, with a sliver of moon, a spray of stars.
“How do you say seal in Spanish?”
“Foca or lobo marino.” Mateo scraped their plates into the trash, his back to his daughter as the suds cleansed the plate of oil, as the water, too hot, scalded his skin.
“Did you notice the foca’s eyes?” Sol stared into her father’s back.
At first, he heard “Did you notice the fucker’s eyes?” and so he smiled at her Spanglish before he reoriented to her question.
“They were abuela’s ojos.” Sol closed her eyes and felt the presence of her abuela. Mateo remembered his mother’s eyes, how brown they were, the color of mud and coffee.
He tucked Sol into bed. He stared into the blackness of his room for hours.
Their two weeks together passed too quickly. Each day was very much like the last. The sand, the waves, Sol. His skin toasted to warm almond under the sun. He covered Sol in sun block. She ran to the shore. Now she knew to stay close by or her father would become wild eyed and sad.
When he took her to the airport, he felt a giant ball in this throat. She cried and draped her thin little arms around his neck and said “I miss you too much Daddy. Can you come with me?”
“Not now, mi amor. I’ll come visit soon.” The flight attendant came and took Sol’s hand.
Sol wiped her tears with her sleeve and walked onto the plane and turned around three times. Airports would forever be a place to be brave in, to pretend you felt nothing, to go numb and just get on the plane. Airports were for going away or coming back and always meant leaving someone on the other end.
Vanessa Micale is a multidisciplinary artist based in Portland, Oregon. She is a mixed Uruguayan American who creates across monikers and mediums as a poet, writer, singer-songwriter and performer. Their Pushcart nominated work appears in The Hopper, Roxane Gay’s The Audacity and more. Vanessa holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Randolph College as a Blackburn Fellow. She has received support from Latinx in Publishing, Anaphora Arts and VONA. Vanessa is a somatic practitioner, facilitator and founder of Poderosa Voz.
website: https://www.vanessamicale.com
IG: @elle_bosque
