About the Author

     Imagine growing up in a Penitente household where your father, Hermano Mayor of the community's cofradía, never discloses a word about their secret rituals although you’re allowed to participate in their public ceremonies. Fast forward another decade after your father’s passing when you clean out the Hermanos’ morada and unearth an old wooden box filled with their religious relics, their implements for performing penance, their blood-stained garments, and their rules established in 1850, all of which confirm what you suspected all along from your limited studies of Penitentes in New Mexico.

    When this happened to me, I knew I had to write my father's story to provide an insight into their secret society which I believe no one else can. What sets my book apart from those already on the market is the first person narration in a style reminiscent of Bless Me, Ultima.

      Hello, I'm Carmen: I'm Hispanic, wife of a wonderful Marine, mother to two sons, a daughter and two grandsons. I'm also a retired teacher. Valley Middle School, located in a rural community, was my first school, where I taught English for six wonderful years. In 1983 when I transferred to West Las Vegas High School in Las Vegas, New Mexico, I taught a variety of English and history courses, mostly at the junior, senior and college levels over the course of the next thirty years before retiring in 2014. Many of the colleagues I worked with over all those years have remained my steadfast friends, just as many more of my former students are my greatest supporters.

     I'm a member of the Las Vegas chapter of the New Mexico Association of Educational Retirees. I'm also a member of several writers' and author groups, among them Southwest Authors, Artists, and Artisans, created by author J. Franklin Green, a new friend and mentor, and more recently, of The Inner Circle Writers' Group. The administrator, Grant Hudson, is my publisher through Clarendon House Publications.

     My writing skills in both English and Spanish enable me to write with true story telling talent (I’ve been told). My experiences growing up amongst los Hermanos Penitentes, traditions, and folklore permit me to tell the story of my father’s entrance into the secret society of the Penitente Brotherhood. Set in the early nineteen hundreds, El Hermano provides historical insight into the life of a rural community which embraced los Hermanos and welcomed their selfless acts of charity. Living on the land left to us by my father, my husband and I enjoy a peaceful county life in northern New Mexico with our furry friends.