I started this year with a post about how my novel Christina’s Portrait has been in the works for nearly 50 years. I ended it by saying, “At some point, it will find a publishing home and become a book people can buy and read.” That point has arrived. Christina’s Portrait will be published by Wordhaven Press in late November 2026.

It wasn’t just that they agreed to publish the book. I was moved by what the editor, Kathy Bosman, wrote in her acceptance letter, “I would be deeply honored to publish your story. It was an incredible story that ticked so many boxes for me.” She later added, “It has such a vital message—and it touches the heart strings.”

One of the challenges we have as writers is to find people who believe in our work as much as we do. It was an experience I had at the Commodore LA Super Show in April with Escape from Arzack’s Castle. I’m grateful that Wordhaven Press has the same belief with Christina’s Portrait. This novel needed the right publisher to bring it to readers because it covers difficult topics that have become increasingly more relevant.

In an online group about San Fernando Valley history, someone posted about racially restrictive covenants that were written into deeds. He showed a 1940 advertisement from a housing tract that promised “permanent race restrictions.” Those restrictions were overturned by Federal civil rights legislation and court rulings in the 1960s and 1970s.

The fact that this discussion took place on Facebook should clue you into what happened next.

Several commenters defended those racially restrictive covenants. One wrote, “This was done to preserve the homeowners’ investment, not out of hate and prejudice.” (Just as the Confederacy broke away from the Union to “preserve the plantation owners’ investment” in their “property.”) One commenter noted the original poster’s Jewish-sounding name and launched into an antisemitic diatribe accusing him of “social engineering” and “socialism.” The original poster defended himself this way, “There’s nothing wrong with some historical knowledge. It’s worse to ‘whitewash’ history than tell the true story.”

I express the same position in Christina’s Portrait, as in this scene:

“But Reseda was a different place in 1977.” Laura’s face tightened. “A murder like Christina’s wasn’t supposed to happen at a school like ours. We were supposed to be a ‘safe’ community. And by ‘safe,’ they meant…” She exhaled hard. “Well, as you’ve probably noticed from that old yearbook, Reseda didn’t have a lot of people like us. You know what I mean.”

I looked at Laura a little more closely. She was Hispanic! Then I turned to Maya, who was nodding slowly in agreement. Her grandparents came here from Nigeria around the time Christina, Laura, and the others were in high school.

Just like the poster in that Facebook group, I expect to get blowback from Christina’s Portrait. I could lose 50-year-old friendships over it. Although my novel is fictional, it is grounded in my experiences growing up in Reseda during the major social changes of the 1970s. The theme of Christina’s Portrait is about the importance of telling stories, even the difficult ones. The truth can offer us healing and freedom, if we have the courage to listen to it. As a character says towards the end of my novel, “When those students told my story—our story—they set us all free. The truth will do that.”

To get updates, visit the Christina’s Portrait page and subscribe to my newsletter. I look forward to sharing Christina’s Portrait with you. In the meantime, here is the trailer for my novel.

Related topics:

The 50-year novel The two Resedas How to write about the past NaNoWriMo 2016: Writing while the world changes

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