Narcissus Nobody

Author Gina Yates has spent decades honing her craft through an unconventional path of travel and entrepreneurship. After immigrating to Canada on a student visa in the early 90s, she married a Canadian citizen and embarked on months-long backpacking trips with him around Asia, Central America, and Africa, funding their travels by selling handcrafted jewelry at music festivals and at downtown Vancouver kiosks. Following a divorce and a years-long stint on the island of Roatan, Honduras, Gina briefly studied creative writing at the University of Northern Michigan in 2003 before returning to Vancouver and eventually earning a diploma in Fashion Business and Creative Arts. During this period she wrote her first novel, an unpublished fictionalized memoir of her time in Honduras, a time that was marred by the addiction and mental illness she inherited from her father, the late celebrated author Richard Yates. Since moving to New Mexico in 2008, she has owned and operated the eclectic vintage clothing shop Frock Star Vintage in Albuquerque as well as completed her first published novel, Narcissus Nobody.