Dedication Pays Off

Wanting to write has always been a dream of mine. I know more people with the same wish and less persons that actually follow through and become writers.  One such person is Manuel Ramos, an attorney I  worked with in the late 70's through the mid-nineties. His rough good looks with black hair and black mustache gave him a Chicano look, if Chicano's have a look.

One day he told me he was taking a creative writing class and the thought that ran through my mind was that another dreamer was hoping to become a writer.  Good luck, I thought, it is not easy to write and get published. Then, I saw a poem he had published in a newspaper; I believe it was in Westword.  A good poem about turning 50.  The next thing I heard was that he had taken a sabbatical from work and was writing a novel. One day he asked me if I had my camera with me because he needed a photo of himself for the book cover of his novel.   I took his picture and the photo appeared in some of his early works.

I went to volunteer in Mexico and lost track of Manuel and what he was doing.  Imagine my surprise when  one day in the Denver Post there were pictures of Denver writers.  I did not recognize any of the faces but as I read I saw that a white haired, with no mustache, man in the photo was Manuel Ramos. He no longer looked like the man I remembered. In a period of about seventeen years he had not only physically changed but had written more than eight books. His latest book Desperado, A Mile High Noir, is a mystery and as in any mystery, I love being kept in suspense and this story certainly kept me guessing! I enjoy reading his stories about north Denver, how neighborhoods have changed, the characters he dreams up, especially an attorney named Luis Montez. It is interesting to read topics relating to the Chicano movement and the involvement of his characters in tangled mysteries. As I read the stories, I can picture the characters because his descriptions are so right-on. I can also see Manuel's dry sense of humor come through in his writing. He likes to throw in words from songs and as long as I have known him, he has been an avid jazz lover.

The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz (1993), The Ballad of Gato Guerrero (1994), The Last Client of Luis Montez (1996), Blues for the Buffalo (1997), Mooney's Road to Hell (2002), Brown on Brown (2003),  King of the Chicnos (2010) and  his latest book, Desperado, A Mile High Noir (2013) are some of his books I have read and enjoyed.


On September 17, 2013, he will come to our book club at Spirit of Christ Catholic Community to talk about his books and to give us some insight on how he became a writer. I now know how dedication and discipline pay off for writers and I can now say I know an  honest to goodness, real, live author!

As luck would have it, I had an unfortunate accident and was unable to attend his presentation to our book club but reports I have received are that he was interesting, a great presenter with a sense of humor and knowledgeable in what to do while writing a novel!