By Kelley Smith
Staff Writer

Published: Saturday, October 13, 2012 5:06 PM CDT

MICHIGAN CITY — Mexican-American author Melinda Palacio will be the featured speaker at the Michigan City Public Library’s third installment of their 28th Writing Out Loud series tonight at 7:30 p.m.

In addition, she will speak in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month at Purdue University North Central’s Library Student Faculty building, room 144 at noon on Monday.

Palacio will discuss and read from two of her books: “Ocotillo Dreams,” a contemporary novel about immigration in Arizona published in 2011, and “How Fire Is a Story, Waiting,” a book of poems published in 2012.

“Ocotillo Dreams” is the story of a mother and daughter who inherit a house in Arizona, and discover an undocumented worker living there.

The book, which is used as a teaching tool in the history department at California State University Fresno, was awarded the Mariposa Award for Best First Book at the 2012 International Latino Book Awards, where it also received an honorable mention in the historical fiction category.

“Ocotillo Dreams” also won the Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award, which Palacio will accept in December.

Palacio, who worked as a reporter during the 1997 immigration sweeps, said she originally intended to write a historical novel. However, during a three-year wait between her book being accepted by a university press and being published, “Ocotillo Dreams” evolved into contemporary fiction.

“It’s a novel that has a relevancy in what’s happening not just in Arizona, but in the copycat immigration laws around the country,” Palacio said. “I’m glad that I’m able to shed light on this important topic through fiction.”

“How Fire Is a Story, Waiting” is a collection of poems Palacio wrote over a period of six years. The book is divided into four sections: Fire, which is about childhood; Air, about travel; Water, about crossing geographical borders (and some Hurricane Katrinareferences); and Earth, which is about death.

Palacio’s mother, who passed away when Palacio was in her twenties, was Mexican, and her father is Panamanian.

Her parents divorced when she was a child, so she grew up in the home of her mother and grandmother in Huntington Park in south-central Los Angeles.

She majored in comparative literature at the University of California Berkeley as an undergraduate, and received her master’s degree from the literature department at the University of California Santa Cruz.

Palacio also penned “Folsom Lockdown,” a book of poems she wrote after visiting her estranged father in prison, published in 2010. It won the Sense of Place Award in 2009.

Because of her unique perspective and experience, Palacio has received several invitations to speak at various universities, organizations and author series.