A
28-year resident of the U.S. Midwest, the Cuban-born author honed his
writing skills in the demanding, fast-paced world of advertising during
a 24-year career. Writer, producer, and experienced public speaker,
Raul is one of the principals and founders of B/R/C Marketing, a 31-person
firm established in 1992.
In
his own words...
“January”
is the first English word I ever learned. I read it on the calendar
thumbtacked to the wall of our apartment in the Bronx. Han-noo-a-ree,
I pronounced it. That was in the winter of 1957. My mother had just
divorced my father and moved us from Havana to New York City. My father
was busy trying to overthrow Batista and my mother thought her prospects
for raising a seven-year-old son looked much better sewing sequins on
evening gowns in the midtown garment district than in a Cuban prison.
Thanks, mamá. You made the right call.
Since
mastering that first English word, the power and joy of words have become
my life. I not only love words, I’ve made a living from them.
First, composing them into pages as a graphic designer, and later arranging
them into sentences as an advertising writer. After twenty-four years
of creating the fiction commonly known as advertising, I decided to
start telling lies for my own pleasure and profit.
America
Libre is my first novel. The idea came when the producer I
was working with on a public television film said, “You should
write a book about this.” The film was a comparative study of
the political and racial landscapes of the U.S. and Latin America. Despite
the project’s impressive collection of international scholars,
we were struggling to find funding. Inspired by the producer’s
idea, I began to write while waiting for the foundations to respond.
Soon, the characters came to life and took the story far beyond the
original scope of the film. The longer the foundations took, the more
I wrote. Seventy-five thousand words later, I realized this piece of
fiction had expressed the message of the film in a much more compelling
way. I’m still waiting for the funding on the film.
While
launching America Libre, I began a second book.
The
Skinny Years is the kind of story anyone well past their teens
can understand. It’s about that unforgettable period when one
changes from boy to man or girl to woman. Like me, I’m sure you
can remember with an uncanny clarity the people, the places, the music,
the laughter, the passion, and the pain of those few years that today
seem to take up the entire first half of one’s life.
The
Skinny Years is based on the story of a real-life Cuban family
from my childhood in Miami. Writing the story turned into a small drama
all its own. While searching the Internet for names from my past, I
reconnected with friends I had been out of touch with for over thirty
years. That alone made the book worthwhile.
I
am currently working on the second book of the America Libre
trilogy, El Nuevo Alamo.
PRESS/PUBLICITY
PHOTOS