We were lucky to catch up with Celia E Ochoa recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Celia E, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
I do absolutely wish that I had started sooner. Way back in 2009 while I was in college I wrote a short non-fiction story for an assignment in my English Literature class. It was that paper that prompted my professor to encourage me to either submit the paper to a magazine or to write a full book about my story.
I started writing it in 2010 but my laptop was stolen and I lost everything that I had written. It was discouraging and though I did attempt to start it again throughout the years, for one reason or another it always fell on the backburner. In 2022, I received a literal sign that it was time to complete that goal, time to complete our story and to put it out into the world. On May 1st, 2023 my memoir Row Your Boat Cuban Refugee was published.
Celia E, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
From the moment that I could read and write in English I was hooked. Reading and writing from that point forward played a big part in my life. Both equally playing a role in escaping the tragedies that surrounded my home life. From a pretty early age I knew that someday I wanted to tell my families story, I just never knew exactly in what way I would do that. It was in college that the thought of writing a book about it was first presented to me by my English Literature professor. I knew then that I wanted to be an Author and my story was the first one that I wanted to tell.
My memoir, Row Your Boat Cuban Refugee, primarily focuses on my childhood in Cuba. From the struggles of having the last name Ochoa (being relatives of General Arnaldo Ochoa who was publicly executed) to spending a year on the run from the law. That year was spent trying to find a way out of the country and ultimately led to us escaping in a homemade boat on August 22nd 1994. We would go on to spend 18 hours in the ocean before being picked up by the United States Coast Guard and transported to Guantanamo Bay detention camps. We would spend 10 months in these camps before being paroled and sponsored to come to the United States.
At its core my memoir is about leaving readers with a sense of hope in the toughest times and providing insight into an experience few have been through.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My ultimate goal with publishing my memoir is that someone, whether it be those we left Cuba with, those we met in the camps or some of the guards that were friendly to us, stumbles upon my book and sees themselves within the photographs included and that we will have the opportunity to reconnect after 29 years.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
My love of books and reading introduced me to the side of Instagram we like to call ‘Bookstagram’. Even though I was actively working on my memoir 6 months prior to creating my account, I created it solely to share the books that I was currently reading. And what I found was an extremely welcoming community. By the time I had finished writing my memoir, so many friendships had developed that it was as if my audience was built before anyone even knew I had written a book. When I finally did announce it, the support was surreal. My memoir unintentionally had an immediate audience.
I think the best advice I can give for anyone starting to build a social media presence is to engage with accounts and network. Talking to people and building connections is so important. Once you know the kinds of accounts you want to follow and to follow you, comment on their posts, share their posts, DM them, and show your support because I can guarantee that they will do the same for you.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: ReadWithCEO
- Other: https://linktr.ee/readwithceo