C.m. Mayo's Podcast (marfa Mondays & More)

Ever since I first heard about Marfa and the remote mountain ranges of West Texas, I yearned to go there. About a decade ago, on a brief visit, I drank in the majesty of the vast spaces, the bluer than blue skies, and at night, stars beyond stars, and— yes, they're real—the Marfa Lights. But the people? Breezing through, I didn't have a chance to talk to many, for I was deep into writing another book, Miraculous Air, about Baja California, Mexico's nearly 1,000 mile long peninsula. Once that wrapped up, I wanted to come back to explore Marfa but first, what I imagined would be a lickety-split project: researching and writing a novel based on the strange but true story of, as the title says, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. It seems a pattern with me, that writing a book always takes about seven times longer than I had planned, but never mind, finally, I am returning to Marfa and West Texas. No, not to live: I'm based in Mexico City, but over the next two years, in a series of journeys, I'll be writing a