Penelope James

"Getting Rid of Ian" is the winner of 2017 Published Memoir in the San Diego Awards. When Penelope James saw her book cover on the screen, "a thousand things went through my head in 5 seconds. I had no acceptance speech prepared. I wasn't even going. It was a surprise and that is about all I said."

Penelope James is Anglo-American-Mexican. Her American-Mexican mother and her British father, a Commander in the Royal Navy, met in New York City during WWII on board the HMS Penelope. Born in England, Penelope lived in a seaside village until she was ten, then grew up in Mexico City. She moved to New York where she began a 30-year career in advertising before returning to England and becoming part of the swinging sixties. After five years in London, she went back to Mexico City, married a Mexican on the beach in Acapulco, had two sons, divorced, and lived in Mexico City for another 30 years. In 2000, she moved to San Diego, California where she pursued a new career in Hispanic research for 12 years.

Penelope has been writing most of her life, but being more intent on her advertising career, she didn't start writing professionally until 1992!. She is publishing "Don't Hang Up!" a riches to rags memoir in spring 2018 and "Coronada" ( about a nun in 1800's Mexico and the modern-day businesswoman who relives the nun's experiences) later in the year.