Tomas Guillen, M.A.

An infant in El Paso, Texas.

As a boy I spent most of my time with rabbits: some black, some brown, some white and brown. We sold some of the bunnies during Easter, but my grandmother primarily raised them as food. As I recall, they tasted very good, at least better than the pigeons we killed with our sling shots. Yes, sling shots. I was born in 1949 and spent my childhood in El Paso, Tex., during the 1950’s. I was born into a dysfunctional family, which resulted in my grandmother raising me. At first, it was fun watching the rabbits sniff around and stomp their feet. The fun ended when I was put in charge of watering and feeding them.

First Communion. Age 9.

For a boy who thought of nothing but playing marbles or war, the responsibility proved too great. Often, in the hot summer months, I’d sneak away to visit the other neighborhood boys. I’d be gone for hours, all day sometimes. When I returned, up to a dozen bunnies would be dead for lack of water. The consequences went beyond words. My grandmother was a hard taskmaster; she often used a stick to discipline. Although I still flinch at the memory of her stick, she taught me two things: always work hard and never lose your faith in God.

During my dysfunctional adolescent years I lived in a small farming community in Arizona. Still poor, I spent my summers working in the cotton fields, chopping weeds or irrigating the cotton plants. Sometimes the field crews had to get up at 3 a.m. to ride a rusty bus 50 miles to find a farm that needed farm workers. After a couple of summers of walking cotton rows for eight hours a day at $1 an hour, I decided school might be of some value to me, a means to break the poverty cycle. School was tough since I repeated the third grade three times – or was it four – because I didn’t know English. Spanish was my first language. Once I learned English, however, it didn’t take me long to discover the magic of books. After reading "The Good Earth," I was hooked on writing. I yearned to write a word, a phrase, a passage that could make someone cry or laugh.

The Guillen family at the edge of a glacier at Mt. Baker.

Along the way, several teachers took an interest in me and guided me through the maze of college applications, grants and scholarships. In 1974 I graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in journalism. My writing was rough, but the Tucson Citizen hired me as a reporter. Several years later, I moved to Omaha to join the Omaha World-Herald, the home of some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. It was there I met my wife Susan. Although I loved the people, I couldn’t stomach their winters. In 1980 when The Seattle Times offered me a job, we packed our bags and moved on. For 15 years I wrote general assignment and investigative stories. Toward the end of my tenure at The Times, a colleague and I wrote a New York Times best-selling book, The Search for the Green River Killer. A couple of years later I wrote Toxic Love, a book about a tragic love affair. Both books were an extension of my investigative reporting.

Although I have always enjoyed the adventure of journalism, I knew that one day I wanted to teach journalism at the university level. In the late 1980’s I took a break from reporting to obtain a Masters Degree in Communication from the University of Washington. And in 1994 I made the move from The Times to Seattle University, a private Jesuit school in the heart of Seattle.