Deborah Clearman

Deborah Clearman writes fiction and memoir shaped by long engagement with Guatemala and by her work with community writers in New York. Concepcion and the Baby Brokers gathers nine linked stories about Guatemalan lives touched by international adoption, migration, family separation, and economic pressure. The collection moves among residents, visitors, and people living between countries, allowing recurring places and relationships to connect otherwise distinct narratives. Clearman's earlier novel Todos Santos also draws on Guatemala, while The Goose's Tale records a collaborative writing relationship formed through the NY Writers Coalition. She served as program director for that organization and has taught creative writing in community settings. Her fiction avoids treating Guatemala as a single backdrop, instead following characters whose choices are constrained by class, nationality, language, and unequal institutions. Concepcion and the Baby Brokers reflects that approach through multiple viewpoints and closely observed consequences rather than a single explanatory voice.