Diane Joy Schmidt “I’m proud to say, I’ve just turned 82,” says author Maria Espinosa. “I’d love to take a painting class or a sculpture class. But, no, no, I just feel, ‘Maria, you haven’t finished your work yet. You have X number of novels, stories you’ve got to complete, and you’ve got to do your damnedest to get them out in the world. And that’s what you were born on earth to do. When I was much younger, I wanted to be a dancer and actress, a singer, anything but a writer.” Asked if it takes a kind of courage to write, Espinosa replied, m“Oh, very much so. Even more so as you get older, to go against the prevailing currents and to write what you need to write, whether it’s popular or not.”