THE Southern Rocky Mountains are capped in snow and plainly visible from Colorado’s South Platte River Valley, where Denver is located. This is where fiction writer Kali FajardoAnstine was born and raised and where she still calls home. Denver and its surrounding area is also the setting of her two books, both published by Penguin Random House imprint One World: the story collection Sabrina & Corina, which was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award, and her new novel, Woman of Light, released in June.
Although the sun shines brightly the morning we’re set to meet, the spring air in Denver is crisp. Fajardo-Anstine picks me up from my hotel in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, rolling up in her compact SUV. She is sporting a Southwestern chic ensemble: a pair of boots, fitted jeans, and a glamorous black blouse. We’re about to embark on a tour of her personal landmarks in the city.
“I began writing the novel long before Sabrina & Corina, when I was still a teenager,” she tells me as we pull out into traffic. The second oldest of seven children, FajardoAnstine recalls strangers expressing dismay at the size of her family. “But what really got some people,” she says, “is that my parents had six daughters and only one son. I remember people saying they felt sorry for my parents for having so many girls. There was an awful subtext there, that our lives as daughters weren’t as valuable as sons.”
This story is from the July - August 2022 edition of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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This story is from the July - August 2022 edition of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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