Inside myself

by Elizabeth Jurado

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1998

About the author

Elizabeth Jurado was born and raised in the border city of El Paso, Texas. Living in El Paso, with the Rio Grande River just down the street from her childhood home, allowed her to experience life in a unique way. As a child, Elizabeth stood on the embankments of the river that separated two countries and watched children from Mexico playing on their side of the river. Throughout her life the two cultures, the American and Mexican, merged into one. Elizabeth saw it in the people around her, in the food, in the language, and in the music. She saw it in the schools she attended as a child and later as a teacher. It was those experiences that inspired her to write Saygar the Magnificent.

Elizabeth worked as a substitute teacher and a first grade teacher for several years. Her inspirations for her book came from a life long observation of the world of children as a child herself and through her work as a teacher. Her characters like bossy Marcie, "little accident" Ezequiel, to brainy Irwin and Saygar were all inspired by some child she met somewhere in her life.

Elizabeth worked as a teacher for several years before making a difficult decision to put her career aside to become a full-time mother to her three sons. With two of her sons close to graduating from college and her youngest a senior in high school, she has made another life altering decision to pursue her dream of becoming an author into a reality.