A voice from the loudspeaker blared, Will the family who brought the little redheaded white girl to the Puerto Rican Day parade please come to the bandstand to pick her up. I looked around. Wait a minute. I am at the bandstand. I am that lost girl!

Michele Carlo, a redheaded, freckle-faced Puerto Rican raised in the Polish section of the Bronx, grew up as a permanent outsider. Too white for her proud, Spanish-speaking relatives and a mystery to her schoolmates, Michele braved a search for identity that was a long, rough and tumble ride. . .

By turns heartbreaking and humorous, she recalls the family calamities, fumblings of first love, and all the people and events that shaped her. From her playground battlefield in the not-so-wholesome summer of ’69 to many adrenaline-fueled, graffiti-filled afternoons and her emergence as an artist with a unique and alluring voice, Michele’s story is an homage to a New York City gone by. . .and an iconically American, unforgettable portrait of growing up.

Warm and insightful. . .Michele’s take on life as a Latina is the most original I have ever seen. –Linda Nieves Powell, author of Free Style

Michele’s humor, heart–and every sweet and razor-sharp note of her writing–reach far beyond the edges of this island.

–Dan Kennedy, author of Rock On

Poignant, funny, and authentic. –Janice Erlbaum, author of Girlbomb

Michele Carlo is a writer, performer and comedic storyteller who has lived in four of the five boroughs of New York City and remembers when a slice of pizza cost fifty cents. Her stories have been published in Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul, Lost and Found: Stories from New York and Smith Magazine. She has often appeared with The Moth and other NYC storytelling communities. Like almost every other writer in NYC, Michele is a Brooklynite (since 1988) with no plans of leaving anytime soon.