We were lucky to catch up with Lana Montalban recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lana, thanks for joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

My parents were highly educated and cultured people. They always believed that education was the most important thing in my upbringing. They would encourage me to study any extra curricular subject I showed the slightest interest in. But at the same time, they were not pushy. If I started taking music lessons or anything else and at some point I didn’t like it anymore, they would not force me to continue. That gave me the incentive to express my interests freely and pursue those that I really had a passion for.

Lana, 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?

I have been a journalist for many decades.

When I moved from my native Argentina to the States, some 20 years ago, opportunities were not easy to come about.
I did all kinds of odd jobs until I decided to launch a talent agency: Best Florida Talents, LLC.
It has been very successful, but the business is changing rapidly -much more during and after the pandemic- and (SPACE) even though I’m still running the company, I’m ready to move on.

About 3 years ago, and having written news, articles, and stories all my life, I decided to become a writer.
As my parents taught me, the first thing you have to do to accomplish anything, is to study and prepare yourself for it with all the resources available to you.

I joined literary critique groups, both in Spanish and English, as well as the most important writers associations and organizations in the country, and took endless courses, seminars and webinars.
And mainly, I wrote up a storm.

Now, I can proudly say that I’m a published author with an adult anthology published in Spain, a children’s book written in Spanish that won an international award, as well as another children’s story that I self published.
This one, Lullaby: Canción de Cuna, is the closest one to my heart. It tells the story of a young girl caught in the invasion to Ukraine, and how her life changes completely. The book is a good tool for parents and teachers to talk about conflicts, war, migration, missing family and many other subjects that sometimes are hard to approach with the little ones. And, unfortunately, in today’s world is also Israel and many other places.

It’s written in Spanish and English and 100% of the proceeds are donated to help the children of Ukraine, where my family is from. The beautiful illustrations were made by an artist living under attack in Kiev, Polina Pluslem.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Being creative is only rewarding if you are able to express your creativity, share what you do and hopefully find appreciation in others.

It took me most of my life to see myself under a positive light, accept my flaws as well as appreciate my own virtues.
I know many people -mostly women, unfortunately- that only have negative things to say about themselves.
I’m not sure where that comes from. We don’t like ourselves, we have a hard time accepting compliments, even giving excuses for them. We must learn to just answer with a simple “thank you”, and take it all in. It’s easier said than done.

Now that I accepted the fact that I am, in fact, a creative person, that I have accomplished some of the things that I set out to accomplish, I have a wider acceptance of my own capabilities and that, in turn, opened up other creative doors.
I highly recommend looking at yourself with the loving eyes that your grandmother would use to see you. And ignore all the demons that see you in a different light.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

As an 18 year old I visited a uncle of mine. He, as many adults would, asked me several questions.

This is how the dialogue went.

—What do you want to do with your life?
—I want to travel.
—You have no money. How are you going to travel?
—I’ll work and make money.
—But you have no education, no skills. What are you going to do?
—I’ll learn. And I also want to speak different languages
—You should have started years ago. It may be too late now.

Well, I have travelled extensively, I speak five different languages and I believe the silver lining of that very negative conversation with my mom’s brother, was that I lived my entire life to prove him wrong.

Contact Info:

• Website: Lanamontalbanauthor.com Lanamontalban.com
• Instagram: @lanamontalban
• Linkedin: Lana Montalban
• Twitter: @lanamontalban
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LanaMontalban/channels

Image Credit

@magnatephotography.