Margarita Velez:  

As a an observant kid, then wife, mother and grandmother I gathered stories about family and neighbors that eventually made it into my musings. For years I was a "closet" writer afraid to share my thoughts. When my first child entered school I began writing in earnest, late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. I worked as Regional Director for U. S. Senator Phil Gramm and traveled across the state and encountered different cultures and met people in a variety of professions and different levels of government. Then I wrote a column in the El Paso Times exploring the border culture for almost four years. Sometimes my kids learned about antics they never knew and Mama wondered how I remembered so many things from childhood. "Stories from the Barrio and Other 'Hoods" is a compilation of some columns from the Times and other publications. "Border Buster" is my novel...Expand for more