American Book Fest has recognized my memoir Bird's Eye View: A Tapestry of Maya Mythology, Motherhood, and Making Live Anew as a finalist for the 2024 Best Book Award in the cross-genre category. Grateful for this acknowledgment of my work!
Interview on the Cameron Journal
“Today on The Cameron Journal we are talking about Bird’s Eye View by Jan Capps. In this book she shares her experiences about living and working in the central American country of Guatemala. This is a tough conversation but very fruitful. Strap in for an eventful episode.”
Podcast interview
Jan was featured in the podcast And Then Everything Changed in which she shared her story. As a young woman, Jan found refuge from her deteriorating family life by working with immigrant farmworkers and farmworker women to help them create more just and equitable lives in the US. She moved to Guatemala to work as a community organizer for a health program so she could better understand the poverty and inequity for so many living in Central America.
Upon her return to the US, she met a man she thought shared her vision and commitment, with whom she had a child and married. After a decade of planning with her husband to realize what she thought was a joint dream -- to embark on a great adventure to move to Latin America with their daughter -- and just three months before they were set to leave, her husband backed out of the trip. Within weeks he backed out of the marriage. Jan eventually decided to continue the journey without him and took a position as a clinic administrator for a small non-project organization in rural Guatemala and moved with her daughter to a Maya village for a year. As a single mother, working full time as an immigrant in a poor country, she was faced with the consequences of her commitment, the paradox of privilege when trying to blend in, and what it means to have dreams change.