Q &A WITH THE CREATORS OF
My Havana
MEMORIES OF A CUBAN BOYHOOD
Rosemary Wells
with Secundino Fernandez
illustrated by Peter Ferguson
A Conversation with
Rosemary Wells
In your author’s note, you say that after hearing
Secundino Fernandez interviewed on the radio in 2001,
his story stayed with you “because it told of the grit
that lies inside children, even in the midst of adversity.”
What led you to write a book about Dino? How did you
start the project?
Dino’s story haunted me. Books for young readers come
through the sieve in my brain and stay. This one was a clear
winner of a story. So I went on a search for the author. . . .
Well, I first had to find him. I could not locate a transcript of
the radio program or find the producer. I had Dino’s name
wrong — as Tino — and that led to four years of frustration. I
even checked with the American Institute of Architects, but
no Tino Fernandez. Then I got lucky one day. Someone else
listened to the archived tape and said, “Rosemary, let me try.”
She came up trumps! I had his name and phoned him. There
he was on Sixteenth Street in my city, New York.
Dino’s character is so vivid and fresh. How did you
capture such an authentic voice for him?
It is his voice through me. This is what actors do — they
transform themselves into someone entirely different. I have
always felt acting to be the art closest to writing. The writer
must entirely shed the self like a snake skin and assume the
voice and entire personality of another character.
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4305-8 • $17.99 ($23.00 CAN)
72 pages • Ages 7–10
A Conversation with
Peter Ferguson
What influenced you as a child to become an illustrator?
Did you relate to Dino’s influences and experiences as an
artist, which led him to become an architect as an adult?
Did you see yourself in Dino’s story as he finds creative
inspiration in the city of Havana?
When I was eleven, my family moved from Vancouver, a
relatively young city, to Montreal, which blew my little mind.
I felt like I’d moved to Vienna or something — the buildings
were so old — and I think that’s what started my love of
architecture. For a long time in my teens I thought I would
be an architect when I grew up, until I realized that nobody
would let me design Victorian buildings. At that point I lost
interest.
Back then I would design brownstone dream homes with
Gothic facades, and they would have a landing pad on the
third floor for my flying car, which of course would be readily
available for purchase by the time I was an adult. I’m still
waiting for that thing — I’ve only got a bicycle, which is a
poor substitute.
Continued . . .
You were raised in Canada, lived in Argentina, and
now live in Japan. How is your art influenced by your
international experiences?
Having lived in Argentina helped a lot when I illustrated the
buildings in My Havana, because Buenos Aires and Havana
have very similar turn-of-the-century architecture.
Overall, traveling a bit has definitely influenced or fed into
what I like to draw. I love archaic architecture. I love seeing
people living a kind of lifestyle that you’d never imagined
before and realizing how much I’d been blinded into
thinking that the way of life I was brought up in is the only
way, the normal way to live. That is how a lot of people on
this planet think, including me. Basically, I love having my
preconceptions blown to smithereens.
A Conversation with
Secundino Fernandez
Can you describe how you and Rosemary Wells
worked together?
Rosemary took me by the hand and taught me all about the
process, explaining to me the entire purpose and meaning
of putting together a book for children. Looking back at our
time spent working on this book, I have to say it was truly an
eye-opening experience for me that I will cherish forever.
The first thing I had to do was put together my ideas of the
past in a coherent manner. I ended up writing almost two
hundred pages of memoirs, which I found nearly effortless
once I had figured out where and how to begin, which was
the major challenge. Nothing I wrote seemed to make any
sense without bringing up some prior event to explain what
was happening. Therefore, the memoirs kept starting further
and further away in the past.
Finally, I began the story with the early years of my
grandparents’ marriage, those two human beings who were
the eldest of them all, the ones who could give background
meaning to my own existence. By starting there, it became
possible to write and tell the story in a way that made sense
for the reader.
Once I arrived at a point where the story was readable,
Rosemary took over, using my memoirs. After Rosemary
digested my story, the wheels began turning on the project,
with a great deal of sharing information back and forth,
questions, answers, and explanations. The early shape of My
Havana, this wonderful story, began to appear.
My Havana depicts a difficult time in your childhood,
as well as many wonderful moments. How did it feel to
revisit those memories? Did the process of creating the
book change the way you think about your childhood
or your immigration to the United States?
Revisiting everything was a whole new experience for me,
and it forced me to value and view that period as a great
learning opportunity. I came to recognize those years as a
critically important, significant time in my formation as a
person and my direction in life.
Perhaps the most valuable understanding I have gleaned from
this experience is that what happened to me was truly meant
to be. I have finally come to feel complete and happy about
the entire experience: the past, the present, and my coming to
the United States. I am glad that I am here and fortunate to
share my story with the great help of Rosemary and Peter.
Illustrations copyright 2010 by Peter Ferguson