Cathy Sylvia asked Lorena Cassady:

Hi Lorena, This is Cathy Cassady, eldest child of Neal Cassady and Carolyn Cassady. I volunteered at the fabulous writers' conference in San Miguel de Allende this year (2017). That was a transformative experience for me! Besides being a struggling writer myself, my dad died there, so it was significant on many levels. I have two queries: Have you attended that conference? Could we be related? Hope so! Thx.

Lorena Cassady Hi Cathy, I've been writing and just recently surfaced to get ready to publish in January. Amazing to hear from you! We may have met years ago at a Neal Cassady tribute in Santa Cruz. If you are his only daughter, I believe I met you and your brother. No, we are not related. At a point in my life when I was laying down one life and starting on a new journey, I decided to name myself after your father. Long story about why, which I'm happy to share sometime. I actually spoke to your mother on the phone and told her I had taken his last name, and of course she was mystified!

I named my daughter after Edward John Trelawny who for me was the 19th century version of your dad, a muse for writers who in many ways lived vicariously through him. With Trelawny as her first name, she pretty much had to learn the alphabet before she could write it.

My feeling of connection with your father started when I was very young, 13, because of my boyfriend. But I took his name much later not because of his connection to the beats or his crazy antics. It was his autobiography that moved me very deeply. His ability not only to survive that childhood, but to do it with energy and intention and at times, joy.

I am 70, almost 71. It has been many years since my exposure to the beats and I have a more critical perspective. Artistically, I have no argument. They changed the world. But as a woman, looking back at that young girl I was, I personally experienced the rather extreme dismissal (I am searching for a better word, but can't find one) of women, and how women were used mainly to support their needs. Henry Miller, Kerouac, Burroughs -- they all saw women as an appendage. And because I was thrown off my own life because of this attitude, which took me decades to see clearly, I have moved on into many other more worlds more spiritually profitable.

I don't presume at all to have known or understood your father, but I do know something about spending a lifetime trying to understand my own. He is still living, but has forgotten me due to his dementia. And it's just as well.

So though we are not related by blood, we are related in some way. And it was wonderful to hear from you. I am still living and writing in Oaxaca, Mexico. Come visit! I'll be moving back to California in a couple of years when my name comes up on the Sr. Housing list in Aptos.

What do you write?
Saludos and abrazos,
Lorena

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