Daniel A. Olivas

What inspired you to start writing?

I had always loved telling stories going back to when I first learned how to read and write. Through grammar and high school, college, and even law school, I worked on journals where I could write and also draw (I was a prolific cartoonist back in the day). But when I became a lawyer, I focused on my profession as well as raising a family though I did write essays on the law quite often for the Daily Journal, the well-established newspaper serving the Los Angeles legal community. But then at the age of 39, my wife suffered the fifth of what would be seven miscarriages. I supported her and our young son in their grief, but I was not handling my own grief very well. So I started to write what would eventually be my first book, a novella titled The Courtship of María Rivera Peña, which is now out of print.