Brenda in Santa Fe, NM

Brenda Moguez writes the kind of stories she loves to read—contemporary stories starring quirky, passionate characters, who are challenged by the fickleness of life and the complexities of relationships.

She’s particularly drawn to exploring the effects of love on the heart of her imperfect creations. Her forte is stripping away the protective layers concealing their doubts and insecurities and exposing the soul of her beautifully flawed characters.

Brenda’s roots are steeped in the Southwest, but at an early age her parents broke free of family ties, moved west, and settled under the glimmer of the Hollywood sign. She’d stroll up and down the Walk of Fame with Bronco Bill, her dad, listening to his impassioned tales of the cinema. Enchanted by the romantically tragic lives the actresses lived, she took to imagining alternative story endings. Back then Brenda had no idea she was prepping for a writer’s life. She would eventually grow up to learn no woman or man has a picture-perfect life. Sometimes it is more, but what and how it plays out depends on the individual is a central theme in the stories she pens.

Aside from her love of the big screen, Brenda is crazy mad about music and books. She can’t go through a day without music. She is always adding new music to her library and making playlists, which combine the new and the timeless. The content of her lists is suspect and nothing she’d want to share with Freud or Dr. Phil. Her romance with books began around the time she discovered cinema, Marvel Comic Books, and the mobile library. Walking up the three steps into the super-sized mobile home to books was like stepping into Eden, and much easier to access than the theater. Much later, she discovered bookstores, now a guilty pleasure and her favorite form of retail therapy. Nothing relaxes Brenda as much wandering up and down the aisles of a bookstore. Even though she has two e-readers, she prefers the weight of a book on her lap and the feel of the page as she turns it.

She frequently attends readings to support fellow authors but ends up daydreaming about her events in which she takes the stage

and planning her wardrobe. If pressed, she’d admit it’s not a healthy habit but claims no author worth their weight in books could deny they didn’t do the same thing. Brenda also collects dictionaries, is a closet ABBA fan, and is a longtime cosmetic junkie. She’s opted to skip therapy and is okay with the reactions of others when she mentions her quirky hobbies and addictions. You can see a few of her dictionaries here.

After college, she went to work on Wall Street, where she learned a great many things, none had much to do with writing, but her experiences make for great after-dinner conversations—especially her years at Barings Bank.

Brenda said I do and moved across the Atlantic Ocean and settled in London for several years before moving back stateside. She now lives in San Francisco, working day jobs to pay the mortgage, leaving the nights to feed her passions, which are only satisfied when the blank page of her journal is filled with her inside thoughts.