Rising Stars: Meet Ofelia Martinez

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ofelia Martinez.

Hi Ofelia; please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started seriously writing over a decade ago, and it’s taken me this long and a literature degree to feel comfortable finally publishing. I debuted with my first novel, Remission, in the summer of 2021. After seeking Latine main characters in romance and coming up short, especially for Mexican-American characters, I decided this was the area I wanted to write in. By and large, the titles I was finding were athletes or criminals and not much else. This is how Remission was born. I wanted to write a high-achieving Mexican-American couple and break every stereotype I’ve ever read about my community. The romance is swoony, but our characters are fierce. I didn’t always know I wanted to be a writer. It took me a long time to find my fierceness. For a long time, I thought I was going to be a painter or visual artist of some sort. I switched my major twice, first to nursing and then to literature, where I knew I was meant to be all along. My path could be more atypical. I never finished high school but returned to get my GED and finish college. When I dropped out of college, I could never have imagined that one day I’d be a published author breaking stereotypes. It’s always possible to follow your dreams, even if they are new dreams.

Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
Not. Carving away space for marginalized voices can be challenging. I am finding a readership even less. I keep doing it because Latina readers are messaging me, with tears as they type, at how connected they feel to characters that reflect them and their families. I’ll get messages telling me, “my mom read your book, and she got teary reading about food she recognized,” or I’ll get a message saying, “I’ve never seen Mexican Spanish in a book before Spanish that sounds how I speak.” That’s why I keep writing. For these readers. I’ve read books as an adult, like “I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter” or “Gabi, A Girl in Pieces,” and I think to myself, “wow, my life would have been so different if I had read these as a teenager.” Representation matters so much! I didn’t know as a kid I could be an artist or a writer, or heck, go to college, because no one ever told me it was an option for someone with my background and socioeconomic group. So long as I have at least one reader who sees themselves in one of my books, I’ll keep writing, so they see themselves reflected in successful Latines.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I write steamy contemporary romance with Latinas on top. That’s my tagline, anyway. What I mean by this is that any woman depicted in any of my books is already successful on page one or is on her way to success throughout the book. Whatever the definition of success means to her. It could be financial, career, or it could be artistic ambition, or a desire to have a big family. It doesn’t matter; she will fight for and get what she wants. Our struggles’ stories are important, but even more so, success stories. Opening the door to another type of possibility could impact a reader’s perspective of life in a big way. My Latine community is also still very closed off about sex and sexuality and talking about sexual health. The romance genre helps with that. Making female pleasure an important part of health and destigmatizing it as “morally wrong” is why I write romance instead of another genre. Very few Latinas are writing romance today, and I want to see more of us. ¡Si se puede!

We all have different ways of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Mastery of craft. I’m not ambitious in terms of financial success (I mean, I wouldn’t turn it away either, ha!), but what’s more important to me is producing well-written, developed, and nuanced books. Books that are character-driven and that readers can connect with. If I write heroes readers can swoon over, and heroines readers can look up to, I have achieved what I set out to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ofeliamartinez.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omartinezauthor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OMartinezAuthor
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/OMartinezAuthor
• Other: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21335502.Ofelia_Martinez