Marie Romero Cash

Best known as an award-winning santera at Santa Fe’s Traditional Spanish Market where she sells her devotional art, the multi-talented Marie Romero Cash went back to school at 50 for a degree in Southwest Studies, then wrote her memoir, Tortilla Chronicles (UNM Press, 2007), about growing up in Santa Fe as the daughter of traditional tinsmiths. She’s also written a guidebook to New Mexico churches, short stories, and now a mystery, Shadows Among the Ruins (Camel Press, 2010). By Wolf Schneider.

What made you go back to college at age 50?

The credibility factor. I was doing a lot of identification of old New Mexico santos, and I was very good at it. But even though I was perfectly capable, more often than not museum and gallery curators wanted a second opinion. I wanted to have the degreed status to be believable.

You’ve written a memoir, short stories, and a mystery. How is your approach different for each?

Well, the mystery was something I got into when I heard about the [Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery] with a prize of $10,000. So I read authors like James Patterson, Robert Parker, and Michael McGarrity. I learned about back-stories and red herrings. I didn’t win the contest, but I found Camel Press and now I have a contract for two sequels [to Shadows Among the Ruins].

Wow! So fast. How do your writing and art influence each other?

I think it takes the same creative process for an art piece as it does for a book. In my art, I start with an idea and I build on it. I think about what it should involve, and what aspects will make it whole. And it’s the same for writing.

Shadows Among the Ruins is about murders and is set at a ranch near Cerrillos that you based on the Cash Ranch, which your husband owned. Is that right?

Yes, my ex-husband owned it and there were Indian ruins out there, and my brother was the caretaker.

You put in seven different shootings and murders in the mystery novel—was this to build suspense?

Yes. You have to make the reader turn the page. So you have somebody else getting shot, or another murder happening.

You’ve said that your character McCabe, a wealthy former law officer, is loosely based on real-life art collector Forrest Fenn. Who is the womanizing ranch-hand Charlie based on?

Charlie was inspired by my brother Ricardo, who told me what it was like living at the ranch—the eerie feelings about being there at night. Plus my brother-in-law was a lawman in Idaho, and he told me all about what it was like to encounter a dead body.

The main female character in the mystery novel, Jemimah, is a forensics investigator. Did you do research with real-life forensic specialists?

I didn’t because I had my brother-in-law. He told me things like what guns you use at close range, and how sheriffs’ cars are only allowed to go 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.

I heard you type 150 words per minute.

I do, from my days as a legal secretary. But I start writing with notes and a storyline on paper. I do everything in my bedroom—read, write, watch TV. I’m a multi-tasker, and my bedroom is where it all happens!
                                                                                   
Wolf Schneider has been editor in chief of the Santa Fean, editor of Living West, consulting editor of Southwest Art. She blogs at www.wolfschneiderusa.com.

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