April Salazar

Hi, welcome! I’m a writer and storyteller, which means I stand on stage in front of strangers, hoping for those mind-melding silences. (I’ll settle for laughter, too.) I've written for The New York Times and I've told stories on The Moth Radio Hour and NPR's Latino USA. I also appeared in a Planned Parenthood video, where I shared my heartbreaking choice.

I'm a proud Chicana and ride or die to a sweet little girl. You can read about my quest to make my grandma's tortillas with her in the anthology SisterWriterEaters, edited by Claire LaZebnik and Ann Brown.

Writing, Radio, and Podcast

The Pregnancy Is Gone, but the Promotions Keep Coming

"When I was done, I fought the urge to cry while my husband hid the formula in what would have been the baby’s room. He tried to cheer me up, but the rest of my day was ruined. I kept flashing back to where I should have been – if everything with my pregnancy had been fine."

The Reveal

"Just as my mom had rebelled against her strict Catholic upbringing, I rebelled, too: by wearing turtlenecks and high-waisted jeans."

If You Give a Toddler a Tortilla

"Dad, a retired bricklayer and mason, taught you how to spread thinset onto the wall with a trowel before placing tile for the backsplash. When it is time to make tamales, he is a pro at spreading the masa onto the corn husk."

sister writer eaters, edited by Claire LaZebnik and Ann Brown: "Toddlers and tortillas"

"You have grand plans. You and your daughter are going to make Grandma Alice’s tortillas on Christmas day. These are the tortillas her mother made in Baja California and later Tucson, after she fled the Mexican Revolution. These are the tortillas she made every day while your dad was growing up and that the Okie neighbors called 'big ole flapjacks.'"

The Sporting Lifer

"With all due respect, I like to call that a Canadian tuxedo."

April's Story: One Woman's Experience of an Abortion at 21 Weeks

"My husband and I just celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary and people still tell us we act like newlyweds. For me, having a child with him just felt like it would be an extension of how we felt about each other."

HOW TO TELL YOUR FATHER ABOUT YOUR ABORTION

"My dad's a conservative Mexican-American, and, by mutual agreement, neither one of us would ever acknowledge that I have a sex life. So when I started fertility treatments, it seemed like the best of both worlds: I got to tell him that he was going to have another grandchild and – even better – that I was going to conceive said grandchild immaculately."

THE HEART ADAPTS

"A few days later I visited the pediatric cardiologist. The baby’s heart looked healthy and strong. But because of his narrow chest cavity, it was growing in sideways. I felt a surge of maternal pride. That was my baby! He had adapted in the most creative, spectacular way."

FEMINIST DÉBUTANTE BALL

"'In the 70s we all wore halter tops and now we all have saggy boobs. You'd think we would have learned from the 60s, when all of those women burned their bras.' My mom never wears underwear. She thinks they're a symbol of men's oppression, but she always wears a bra."

Amber Alert

"The police officer stopped writing and glanced over at Mom’s license plate, an out-of-state vanity plate that said, 'AMBER,' Mom’s stripper name. She studied the quizzical look on the cop’s face, and then said, 'Oh, I’m from California.'"

I’M X PERCENT NATIVE…RIGHT?

"When I turned sixteen, Grandpa’s brother presented me with a handwritten family tree. He said that the Spanish he had grown up speaking in New Mexico was closer to colonial Spanish than what was spoken in modern Latin America.  He used verb tenses that were in common usage more than four hundred years ago."

Now or Never

"Because our school was so tiny, our band didn't have all of the usual things that you would expect, like uniforms or instrument sections or... talent. Instead, we'd get together in a windowless room and rehearse a smooth jazz piece that had been composed by our teacher, "The Sweet Scent of Jasmine." And since we had no actual performances planned, it was technically like we were jamming."

Thanks for visiting! You can contact me at aprilsalazarwrites at gmail.com or follow me on Twitter.