Fiction
Non-Fiction
Authors
Home
Book 2
 Home
Author Bio
 Contact Us
Home
Some Questions from Readers about the Story
1.        How do you know so much about archaeology? (We know you're not an archaeologist.)

Very true. However, I have a Ph.D. in anthropology, and although I specialized in linguistics, I took classes in archaeology. So, I know something about archaeology in Mesoamerica and more generally about how archaeology contributes to our knowledge of earlier cultures. I also spent enough time with archaeologists to know that they absolutely love their work. In that way, I made Pablo a fairly typical archaeologist. When people tell me they're thinking about going into archaeology, I always tell them to go for it.

Having said this, I have almost no first-hand experience with the day-to-day work of excavating. As an author writing about a dig, I probably should have signed onto a dig or at least hung around one. Instead, I did the next best thing. I went to the public library and found children's books on the life of archaeologists. I have found children's authors to be clear, detailed, and concise in their explanations, and that's where I got the majority of my information about excavating. Unfortunately, the books did not discuss how archaeologists carried out their work in 1950s Guatemala, so I had to make some educated guesses.

2.        How could you bring yourself to kill your characters? (In other words, how could you be so hard-hearted?)

Let me start by saying that my characters live for me, just as they do for readers. However, writers have an extra layer of separation from their characters. I know that each character is a product of my imagination, and that gives me enough distance to kill off one or two in service to the story.
I will say that at one point in writing Knots, I was going to kill off one of my most likeable characters, and the members of my on-line writing group strongly objected. I was pleased that they had come to care about the character, but it meant that I had to reconsider his demise. In the end, I decided I could make some adjustments to the story and keep the character alive.

3.        Why didn't you tell us that Ernesto Guevara was Che Guevara?

I wanted to, but unfortunately, it was the Cubans who nicknamed him Che. As far as I know, when Che Guevara was in Guatemala in 1954, he still used Ernesto, his given name. It would have been fun to let readers know that Ernesto was Che, but I couldn't think of a good way to tell people that without writing some pretty contrived dialogue. I finally decided that readers would come to know Che just as the Guatemalans did, as an idealistic and sometimes irritating young Argentinian, who was still basically a nobody.

4.        Was a quipu really found at a Guatemalan dig?

        No. That part of the story was fiction. Los Ancianos and the town of Chayaka exist only on a fictional plane, as do their residents. I portrayed the political and social situations of the time as accurately as I could, but Meg, Patricia, Noemi, and their families are products of my imagination (and yours, as an active reader).


Authors
Discussion Questions
Book 2- Unraveling
the Threads

Book 1
Book 1 - Reading the Knots

Book Club Discussion Questions