Join us for an afternoon celebrating Deborah Santana's new memoir Loving the Fire: Choosing Me, Finding Freedom. Santana will be in conversation with Natalie Baszile, followed by a booksigning. Copies of Loving the Fire are available for purchase in the MoAD bookstore.
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About the Book

In the powerful memoir, Loving the Fire: Choosing Me, Finding Freedom, author and activist Deborah Santana shares her journey of spiritual awakening shaped by a rich life of family, partnership, and purpose. Born to pioneering interracial couple Jo Frances and Saunders King, Deborah learned early the strength of identity, resilience, and love. Later married to legendary musician Carlos Santana, she embraced many meaningful roles—daughter, wife, mother, and supporter—before recognizing that it was time to fully step into her own voice and calling.
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Across stories of motherhood, heritage, faith, and spiritual growth, Deborah takes readers on a deeply human journey of resilience and renewal. From her work with Daraja Academy to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, she reveals how a life devoted to service can evolve into one rooted in truth, wholeness, and fulfillment.

Equal parts inspirational memoir, spiritual reflection, and women’s empowerment, Loving the Fire is for anyone standing at a crossroads—ready to honor who they’ve been and step into who they are becoming.

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About the Speakers

Deborah Santana is the author of Space Between the Stars: My Journey to An Open Heart and the editor of the acclaimed anthology All the Women in My Family Sing. Her work has been featured by Vogue, Oprah.com, and NPR, among other national and literary outlets. She is the founder of the Do A Little Foundation, which supports women and girls in the areas of health, education, and happiness. Her work explores identity, social justice, spirituality, and the power of collective voice. She has produced five short documentary films, four with Emmy-award winning director Barbara Rick. She is mother to three artists: Salvador Santana, Stella Santana and Angelica Santana. She holds a Master of Arts in Philosophy and Religion with a Concentration in Women’s Spirituality. She is a leadership donor of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, a Lead Investor to the Courage Museum in San Francisco, and a former trustee of MoAD Board of Directors.

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Natalie Baszile is the author of the novel, Queen Sugar, which was adapted for seven television seasons by writer/director Ava DuVernay, and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey. Queen Sugar was named one of the San Francisco Chronicles’ Best Books of 2014, was long-listed for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, and nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

In her new non-fiction book, We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating of African American Farmers, Land & Legacy, Natalie brings together essays, poems, conversations, portraits, and first-person narratives to tell the story of Black people’s connection to the land from Emancipation to the present. We Are Each Other’s Harvest is an Amazon Editor’s Pick and was a Wall Street Journal Book of the Year, 2021.

Her new novel, Good People, will be published in the fall of 2026.

 
Natalie's non-fiction essays has appeared in National Geographic, The Bitter Southerner, O, The Oprah Magazine, and numerous anthologies. She has taught fiction at Saint Mary’s College and Sierra Nevada University.

A native Californian, Natalie’s southern roots stem from Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama.  Her maternal Great-great grandfather, Mac Hall (b. 1845) was a farmer, merchant and beekeeper.  Natalie’s passion for the stories of Black farmers and land stewards comes from a desire to shift the narrative around agriculture, farming, and labor.

Natalie has a M.A. in Afro-American Studies from UCLA, and an MFA from Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. She has had residencies at Ragdale Foundation, VCCA, Hedgebrook, and Djerassi where she was the SFFILM and Bonnie Rattner Fellow. Natalie lives in San Francisco.

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