I used to write at night. I was teaching school, and I was married, and had to do all the things that one does when one is working and has a family. But I used to write at night.

My father was what you would call a cowboy, a vaquero; he worked out in the ranches with cattle. And my mother came from farmers down in the valley.

'Bless Me, Ultima' is quite autobiographical in the sense that I was writing a story about my childhood, my hometown where I grew up, Santa Rosa, New Mexico, on Old Highway 66 and the Pecos River. So a great deal of that environment, landscape, people, got thrown in the novel.

Rudolfo Anaya Quotes