When Maria Celia Garcia was 6 years old, she went to her first American grocery store with her mother. They stood in the bread aisle staring at the endless shelves of colorful packaging. Maria asked her mom, “are all those bread?” and she nodded yes. Maria asked, “Can we have one?” Her mom responded, “We can have as many as we would like my baby.” In 1966, after escaping from Cuba, Maria and her family settled in Silicon Valley where she grew up and joined the technological revolution. After 30+ years of working in this arena, she gave herself an extraordinary gift for her 50th birthday - she changed careers and honored her calling as an artist and screenwriter with a meaningful story to tell. Years later, Maria continues to shop producers to secure funding for her Spanish-language screenplay, Cada Alma which recounts her family’s life-rattling experience after denouncing Fidel Castro’s regime and plotting their escape from their beloved island. Maria is also working on a dramedy TV series about the lives of older lesbians and their quest to find love. Maria's career goal is to become a produced writer of social impact stories that spotlight relevant conflicts experienced by people in the US and around the world.