The Texas State Forensic Anthropology Research Facility located in San Marcos, Texas, sprawls across twenty-six acres of rolling hills, scraggly mesquite bushes, seasonal bluebonnets…and decomposing bodies. The cadavers lying under wire cages bake in the searing heat as researchers measure the presence of maggots and blowflies, the chronology of skin slippage, and the sensory adventures of the bloat stage.

But what if one of the donated bodies came back to life and decided to take a stroll through the university campus adjoining the research center?

That “what-if?” forms the heart of The No-Brainer’s Guide to Decomposition, my middle-grade novel about Frani, a young girl who must solve the mystery of reanimated cadavers at her father’s university campus before they wreak havoc on freshman orientation, the football team, and Frani’s plans of having a normal sixth-grade year.

My own interest in forensic pathology and my proximity to Texas State University inspired the story. I interviewed the professors in charge of the research facility and read countless books on the subject, horrifying my husband and son with tales of my new knowledge over dinner. The novel could have been a contemporary story showcasing the details of forensic science as well as a protagonist struggling to come to terms with her ADHD while navigating new friendships and sibling turmoil.

But where’s the fun in that?

Using fantasy as a tool to convey the larger themes of a story can engage young readers. Similarly, grounding fantasy in a real-world setting and events gives them the schema with which to comprehend the story’s parameters. As a reader, I tend to select fantasy stories rooted in familiar elements I can picture in my mind. As a writer, the places I visit and historical events I learn about often serve as a springboard for the stories I create.

Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. Photo: Adrianna Cuevas.

My Edgar Award–winning mystery, The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto, deals with a boy coping with his mother’s illness, banished for the summer to a remote ranch after a school prank goes wrong. Like The No-Brainer’s Guide to Decomposition, this novel found its genesis in a real-world setting: Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. In the summer of 2019, my sister invited me to serve as the ranch’s librarian while she worked as an emergency wilderness medic. As I sorted through boxes of donated books and dead cockroaches, I learned the lore of the area — tales of serial-killer brothers, enormous serpents, and creatures made from red clay. It was the setting I visited while looking around and asking myself: What if?

Because that’s my method as an author. I take places and events familiar to me and expand them to fantastical levels in my mind. What if a boy in central Texas who’s separated from his military father has to fight a shape-shifting witch? What if a Corpus Christi girl who’s ashamed of her Cuban heritage is cursed with bad luck by El Cocodrilo?

What if the U.S. Army invaded a town in central Texas and imposed ­martial law? What if they closed the schools and churches, took over the newspaper and radio, and set curfews? And what if, during this military invasion, a boy found a space alien hiding in his barn and agreed to reunite her with her parents?

This is the premise of my new book, What Fell from the Sky, and part of the story is based on a true historical event that happened in Lampasas, Texas, in 1952. I’ll let you guess which part.

When I learned about Operation Long Horn and researched it at the Lampasas County Museum in 2023, sorting through yellowed newspaper articles brought out of a dusty attic by museum volunteers, I knew this little-known military maneuver was fertile ground for a story. Incorporating a bicultural main character, mirroring my own experiences, as well as a Black soldier adjusting to a newly integrated army opened the narrative up to themes of acceptance of identity and coming together in the midst of oppression.

All of these themes could certainly have been conveyed in a strictly historical novel, highlighting only the military operation that took place in Lampasas in the 1950s. But dropping a space alien into a barn in the middle of the chaos and having her befriend a local boy so they could go on an adventure to reunite her with her parents?

Well, that’s just more fun, isn’t it?

From the May/June 2025 special issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Perception and Reality. Find more in the "Reality Reimagined" series here.

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