This week's guest on REPORT FROM SANTA FE is the celebrated and multi-award winning author Sandra Cisneros, writer of two highly celebrated novels, “The House on Mango Street” and “Caramelo.” Her awards include National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the Lannan Literary Award, the American Book Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Other books include the story collection “Woman Hollering Creek;” two books of poetry, and two books of children’s literature. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. Sandra Cisneros talks with Lorene Mills about her new book "Have You Seen Marie?," a beautiful fable about loss. Cisneros delves into the need for modern day fairy tales and superheroes, talks about how stories can serve as medicine for their listeners, and explains how a historical controversy of inclusion/exclusion can be sparked by painting your house periwinkle. ---QUOTES - Sandra Cisneros: “I could tell when I was reading it that it was serving as medicine to some people in the audience, because they would get very quiet and their eyes would well up with tears, and there would be like a glass of water filled to the top, and I knew I had to be very gentle with them. And then they would come (up) afterwards and say ‘I felt like your wrote that story for me’ and I would always say I did.” “Well it is a political piece in that it’s writing about women and children, and in this day and age, that is very political, don’t you think?” PRESS QUOTES: • Boston Globe -- “Cisneros is the impassioned bard of the Mexican border.” • New York Times Review of Books -- “Cisneros draws on her rich Latino heritage…and seduces with precise, spare prose, creating unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one.”