Have I Said Too Much
Carmen Delzell lives somewhere between Mexico City and Austin, Texas. She has lived in Saltillo, Coahuilla, and San Miguel de Allende since 1993 when she won a National Endowment grant and hit the road running. She has two grown children and makes her living selling antiques, travel stories, and sometimes her “nichos” which fetch as much as $35 each. Many years ago she graduated from Goddard College and lived in Washington, D.C., where she had a vintage clothing store called Blue Moon.
Her stories have aired on All Things Considered, Hearing Voices, PRX, Savvy Traveler, and This American Life. Most of the work in this first collection dates from 1980-2010. She’s been in print or online in Wigwag, Transom, Gargoyle and Washington Review. NBC News Nightline did a feature on her life on September 10, 1993. You can find it on YouTube.
Reviews
“A wonderful writer.” – Ted Koppel, on Nightline
“I love the title of this collection. More than most of us, Carmen is willing to say uncomfortable, true things. She’s dead honest and doesn’t hold back. I’m grateful to her for that. Carmen has often lived on the edges, by choice or by circumstance, and it’s important to hear about what she finds out there.”–Jay Allison, Producer of The Moth Radio Hour
“Carmen Delzell has lived most of her life on the edge of poverty, sometimes living out of her car. She wrote, ‘Bad men and cheap bars draw me like a magnet, but I fight it too.’ Men are also drawn to her. Often the men are broken and she tries to fix them. She writes with vivid descriptions and candor about her life and much more. Carmen writes the back story of others living on the edge from whom you avert your eyes on the street. Fascinating.”—Bill Siemering, NPR Founder
“When Socrates said ‘the unexamined life is not worth living,’ Carmen Delzell heard him. Her wild, wise stories look into every corner of experience and proclaim what she has seen, felt, tasted and heard artfully, honestly and without filters. This book is a tour de force.”–Beth Joselow, author of Excontemporary and The April Wars