Dorothy P. Ward

"She was extraordinary," Sarah Delaney says of the young soldadera, a female revolutionary soldier, who stares confidently from a framed black and white photo that hangs in Sarah’s home. Sarah, known as a "bit of a recluse," is famed for her photographs of the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution. At ninety-one, she suddenly reaches out to two professors at the local university’s Institute of Oral History, inviting them into her home to interview her about life in the border city of El Paso, Texas, during the Mexican Revolution. Sarah explains, "You and I both have something to gain from reopening the past." Through a series of interviews, Sarah reveals the drama, turmoil, violence, and heartache she experienced amidst the social and political upheaval of the time.

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"Dorothy Ward has written a fabulous historical novel that uses the lens of women’s memories—those of a photographer and of a soldadera—to examine complexities of life, love, and loss. . . . Culminating with the reunion of two aging friends on either side of the border, the novel presents the resilience of love and the healing power of truth."
— Cheryl Howard, author of forthcoming In a Place, In a Time and Cemetery of Sand

Dorothy P. Ward earned her Ph.D. in British and American literature from the University of North Texas. Her publications include articles in the El Paso Historical Society journal and poems in various literary publications. As an academician, she co-authored articles published in academic journals and monographs, and is co-author of the monograph Organizing for Student Success: The University College Model (University of South Carolina). For more than three decades, she served as an administrator and faculty member at The University of Texas at El Paso. Currently, she lives on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, with two unruly German shepherds, a blue-eyed horse, and a rescue donkey.

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