A Little About Me

I think my stories began long before I knew I would write them.

I grew up in Cuba, where I would often talk to the people who passed by my house on their way to the sugar factory. One day, I said hello to a man who looked a little rough around the edges. He stopped to talk to me, and I discovered something I had never really known before: he loved poetry.

He introduced me to writing, poetry, and figurative language. Together, we created my first little piece of poetry:

“El aire peina las palmas,
y brilla al compás del sol,
el aire juega con el girasol.”

I don't remember what came after that, but I remember how it felt.

I joined literary groups, kept writing, and for a while, I was even going to be published as the youngest writer in my province. But then I started hearing that poetry wasn't cool, writers didn't make money, and I needed to think about something more practical.

My family was struggling financially. I didn't have a home of my own, and at one point I was sharing a house with four other families. I wanted a different life. I wanted stability. So I buried my dream of writing and slowly forgot that part of myself existed.

I went to university, became a software engineer, and eventually moved to the United States. I built a career, got married, bought a house, and was able to help my mom back in Cuba. From the outside, life looked good.

But something was missing.

Then I had my son, Diego.

Somehow, becoming his mom reconnected me with a part of myself I had forgotten. I started making up little rhymes and stories for him, singing to him, and even creating silly pieces of poetry in the shape of stories during our flights.

My mom kept telling me, “You like writing.”

I didn't want to hear it.

But the stories kept coming.

One of them was born from something very ordinary: Diego was learning to skateboard and insisted on wearing sandals instead of sneakers. He fell, and after my very unhelpful “I told you so,” I started thinking about how children learn from what happens to them—and how a story might sometimes teach more than another lecture.

That was how Matilda was born.

And then I buried that story too.

I kept searching for whatever was missing while continuing to write and sing for my little boy.

Then, during a life workshop, a psychologist said something that changed the way I thought about purpose. We don't necessarily have one single purpose in life. We don't have to have everything figured out at once. We are allowed to explore, learn, change, and discover ourselves along the way. Sometimes a goal is simply the motivation that gets us to take the leap. What matters is what we discover during the journey.

Something clicked.

Maybe I didn't need to know exactly where I was going.

Maybe I just needed to leap.

So I did.

And as I stepped into the unknown—scared, anxious, and with no guarantee of where it would take me—I discovered something I could no longer ignore:

What truly makes me excited to wake up and start working are these stories.

I love turning the little lessons of life into rhyming stories. I love finding ways to talk about emotions, mistakes, fear, friendship, frustration, and all the little challenges children face without turning them into lectures. And I love hearing from a mom that her child asked to hear one of my stories again.

I am still at the beginning.

I still get scared. I still don't know exactly where this journey will take me.

But I know that I'm becoming a version of myself that feels more like me.

That's also where The Brave Leaf came from.

That little leaf is me—the part of me that was scared and anxious but decided to leap anyway. But it's also every child starting a new school, standing up to give a speech, trying something for the first time, or facing something that feels bigger than they are. And it's every mom moving to a new city, starting a new job, or beginning a chapter she never imagined.

Maybe we all need the same reminder sometimes:

We don't have to stop being afraid before we leap.

We can be scared, and still move forward.

I hope these stories can give your family a little space to talk, laugh, play, wonder, and grow together.

And I'm so happy you're here.