Texas author Cynthia Leal Massey combines her background in journalism and love of history to write award-winning historical fiction and nonfiction. Born and raised on the south side of San Antonio, she has resided in Helotes, 20 miles northwest of the Alamo City since 1994. A full-time writer who publishes history columns about Helotes for local publications, Cynthia is a past president of Women Writing the West, a national writers organization. She is also a member of Western Writers of America. A former corporate editor, college instructor, and magazine editor, she has published hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles and is the author of eight books. Visit Cynthia’s website https://cynthialealmassey.com and author pages on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com for more information about Cynthia and her books.
Instinctively Curious
By Cynthia Leal Massey
Before I learned how to read, my mother bought a children’s encyclopedia set from a traveling salesman who came to our door. At age four, I spent hours paging through those red-covered, hardback books filled with fairy tales, children’s stories, and lovely illustrations. The pictures stimulated my imagination to the point that when I did learn to read, I eagerly read the stories and was somewhat disappointed. The stories I had concocted about the pictures in my imagination were much more exciting than the stories published in the book.
A writer was born.
In elementary school, I became an avid reader of biographies—my favorites were about Pocahontas and Sacagawea, Amelia Earhart, Clara Barton, and Florence Nightingale—and mysteries, such as the Nancy Drew and Donna Parker series. US Presidents and frontier men and women were also appealing. My school did not have a library. A bookmobile came once a week, and I so looked forward to its arrival. My mother also gave me a dollar once a month to purchase paperbacks from the Scholastic Book Company—another treat. In those days paperbacks for kids were about 45 cents each, so I was able to buy two books. I gravitated to children’s mysteries and historical fiction. I still have many of those paperbacks!
Writing was not a chore for me like it was for so many others, and I didn’t have any difficulty making A’s in my English classes. My curiosity about the lives of other people and the mechanisms of society led me to journalism, and in my senior year of high school, I was promoted to editor of our high school newspaper.
At St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, during my junior year, I took my first creative writing course. I learned two important things: writing fiction was very different from writing nonfiction, and, for me, it was much more difficult. My classmates, it seemed, had no problem writing interesting stories from their imagination, pulled from what I thought was thin air. It seemed miraculous. I, on the other hand, coming from a journalism background could not “make things up.” And yet, I loved fiction. I loved reading novels. I was determined to channel that inner child who, when she was four years old, used her imagination to create stories out of thin air.
After graduation, I landed my first job at a scientific research center, where I worked as an editor/writer for the employee newsletter and the company’s scientific magazine. I got married, and when my son was born two years later, I resigned after ten years at the center. Being able to be at home with my baby was a blessing, and my time at home with him gave me the opportunity to work as a freelance writer (when he was asleep!). I worked as a correspondent for the local newspaper and also began to focus on writing fiction. As my son, and later, my daughter (born five years later) got older and started school, I worked part-time as an adjunct professor at the local community college (for 13 years) teaching English rhetoric and composition, and then for four years as a magazine editor. All the while, I was writing at home, working on fiction.
In 1997, I joined Women Writing the West, a national writers organization, one of my best career decisions. It was through this organization, for which I served as president in 2003, that I learned from agents, editors, and other established authors how to best market my books. The networking opportunities at the annual in-person conferences were pivotal in my writing success.
My first published fiction was a short story, “Language of the Heart,” that appeared in the children’s magazine, “Cricket,” in 2000. That story is about a meeting between a young girl who could only speak English and her great-grandmother who could only speak Spanish. Another short story, “The Molcajete,” came out that same year in an anthology titled “New Texas 2000,” published by the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Belton, Texas. That story is about a much-desired heirloom that causes conflict among siblings. Both stories were inspired by true events. I knew then that I could use my journalistic background to write fiction.
I had a hard time placing my first novel, “Fire Lilies,” a family saga set during the Mexican Revolution that took me four years to write, with a traditional publisher. New York publishers were the worst. One of my rejection letters said that “nobody cared about Mexico.” This was the era (late 1990s, early 2000s) when the internet began to cater to writers with digital opportunities. I placed the novel with a now-defunct digital publisher in 2001. They modeled their company like traditional publishers with an acquisition’s editor, developmental editor, and a copy editor.
“Fire Lilies” earned two awards: Winner of the Independent E-Book Award (Digital Literature Institute) for Best Romance and an EPIC (Electronically Published Internet Connection) Finalist Award for Best Historical Fiction. Its sequel, “The Caballeros of Ruby, Texas,” published in 2002 by a regional Texas press, was a WILLA Literary Award Finalist for Best Original Softcover Fiction.
I was finally on my way.
Several of my subsequent books and articles, both fiction and nonfiction (eight and counting), have won literary awards. My upcoming historical crime mystery, Well of Deception, chronicles the 1958 murder of a turkey breeder and the hunt for her killer from the era of Prohibition to the decade of the most devasting drought in Texas. Set in a fictional county, this novel was (you got it!) inspired by true events.
Finally, I’d like to share a couple of accolades I’ve gotten as a writer that have remained my favorites and most satisfying.
Before my second novel, “The Caballeros of Ruby, Texas,” was published, my publisher asked me to send the galley out for cover blurbs to published authors, preferably with some name recognition. I decided to send a copy to my favorite Western author Larry McMurtry. Not long after, Mr. McMurtry sent me a handwritten, signed letter on his bookstore stationary in which he wrote a very nice blurb for my novel, which, of course became the spotlight blurb! I treasure that letter, which is framed and hangs in my office. It says, “Cynthia Massey has given us a vivid picture of the Rio Grande Valley as it was fifty years ago. The Caballeros of Ruby, Texas is a very good read…” His postscript was: “I wish you luck.”
Even though I treasure that letter, the most important accolade I got was from my daughter, Meghan, then in the sixth grade. She came home from school that day so excited, I thought she was going to burst. She said they were taking state-mandated tests that morning and when she opened her booklet to read the excerpt on reading comprehension, she saw that the story was by me.
It was an excerpt from my children’s short story, “Language of the Heart.” She said she immediately started to tell her classmates, and her teacher admonished her to be quiet. When she tried to explain to the teacher why she was talking, the teacher shushed her again. After class, several of her classmates who also noticed my name on that selection, rushed to Meghan and asked her if she was related to the author of that test paragraph.
Meghan proudly told them, “Yes, I am! She is my mother!”
Links to Cynthia’s books:
https://www.tamupress.com/search-results/?keyword=cynthia+leal+massey
https://www.stoneycreekpublishing.com/cynthia-leal-massey
Social Media Links:
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CLMBooksTX/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/clmbook/
Twitter/X https://x.com/cmasseytex/
September 21st, 2025
Such an interesting journey!