I remember Michelle Otero as the girl who could do everything. She wrote for the school newspaper, made all-state in band, sang in chorus, acted in drama, was a member of student council, honor society, the prom committee and served as student body president before going on to Harvard and, later, Vermont College.

I hadn’t seen Michelle since the summer that we graduated high school back in 1990, so I was very excited when one of my sisters had a chance encounter with her and snatched up her email address. Over the last few months, I’ve gotten reaquainted with the girl whom I called “best friend” back in the days of parachute pants and Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No campaign. In the process of getting reaquainted, I’ve learned that there was so much about Michelle that I didn’t know.

When Michelle was 32, she journeyed to Oaxaca , Mexico to facilitate a creative writing workshop for women survivors of domestic violence and sexual assult. Since returning, she has written a moving, deeply personal chapbook of essays titled Malinche’s Daughter, put out by Momotombo Press of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies. Through her book, she shares her personal experience with sexual abuse while giving voice to her students’ stories, touching on a culture of shame that has silenced women for centuries.

As her friend, a reader deeply affected by her writing, and someone who wants the entire world to read this thing, I’d like to offer pieces of a recent interview Michelle so generously gave to me.

Q: What or who do you credit for your ability to not only function but to transcend in spite of your experience with sexual abuse as a child?

A: When I finally acknowledged the abuse and began the conscious process of healing (as opposed to surviving), part of what got me through was recognizing my resilience, standing in awe of the human heart and mind and what they will do to develop and grow and protect us until we feel safe enough to deal.

In Malinche’s Daughter, I write about a tree that Belizeans call the Give and Take. The spines emit a painful toxin that causes the skin to swell. The inner bark of the tree’s lining contains the antidote. Nothing is ever pure in its evil. That which hurts us can also heal us. I drew strength, humor, and sensitivity from the very place where I was hurt. And I wanted to write the book partly to uncover that, to show that our lives are more than the events and the trauma that happen to us and that our families, for better or worse, help us to become the people we are meant to be in this life.

I feel I came into this universe with a task, a sort of contract to fulfill with the people who shared my house as I was growing up. Healing from the abuse was part of that. Writing Malinche’s Daughter was part of that. Because I was courageous and honest, I have lightened the burden that the next generation will carry into this life.

Q: In Malinche’s Daughter, you write about your time in Oaxaca, Mexico as a Fulbright Scholar. What is your fondest memory of that time? And, coming from a place where the majority of the population was fluent in Spanglish, was it hard to be immersed in the Spanish language that way?

A: My maternal grandmother died a few months before I left for Oaxaca . The pain was immense, almost more than I could bear. And still, there was a gift in that pain. Releasing her opened my heart and enabled me to receive the beauty and joy life had been waiting to give me. For the first time I appreciated my life for what it was. I was thankful for my whole life, even those moments that seemed to be missteps. I felt big and unafraid and I spent those two years casting off the habits I had cultivated when I lived out of fear and insecurity, thanking them for their service and letting them go.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was working through my fear and mistrust of men. Before Oaxaca , though I never would have admitted it, I saw men as the enemy. It went something like this: If only they weren’t dishonest or violent or cruel or immature, then I would be happy. That line of thinking didn’t hold up in the world I wanted to inhabit. My liberation is bound up with that of my brothers and the only way we will dismantle patriarchy or stop violence against women is to create a world where men and women can be the whole people we were intended to be.

Living in Oaxaca , teaching writing, and speaking Spanish felt like coming home in many ways. Like most of the Chicano kids who went to high school with us, I didn’t grow up speaking Spanish. My parents spoke it to each other when they wanted to talk about us. I learned in college and then spent a summer in Guatemala when I was twenty. And when I finally got to Oaxaca at the age of 32, I decided to make myself vulnerable to Spanish, to take the risk of sounding a little stupid in order to reclaim the language of my parents and grandparents.

Q: Many bloggers blog because they enjoy writing. Some of them harbor hopes of seeing their name on the cover a book someday. As someone who’s been there and done that, do you have any advice for them?

I don’t believe there is a magic formula for getting published, and it’s one of the reasons I avoid panel discussions or conferences on getting your work into an editor’s hands. When I feel envidia creeping up on (or sucker-punching) me while reading the Recent Winners section of Poets & Writers, I try to remind myself that my path is my path. I am slow. I rarely love the first draft of anything I write. I have a full-time job that has nothing to do with my writing. And yet, if I don’t write a little every day, I start to unravel, not in a Unabomber kind of way, but my head starts to muddy and I feel less and less like me until I reestablish a relationship with my writing.

So I offer the same advice to others that I offer to myself: write and read as much as you can every day. Thanks to writer and creativity coach Demetria Martinez, I am now a member of the informal 500 word club. I try to write 500 words a day no matter what. It keeps me in touch with the story and lessens the pressure of each writing session. The other thing that has helped me immensely is teaching. My vision is to create Las Creativas, an organization that will build on the work I started in Oaxaca , dedicated to healing women and their communities through writing.

To order Malinche’s Daughter, please contact Tianguis, the exclusive distributor of Momotombo Press titles: info@tianguis.biz. Or call (312) 492-8350.

For the rest of Catherine’s interview with Michelle, visit her blog http://www.onthebanksoftheriogrande.blogspot.com.