I am a sales and marketing rep by day and writer by night, with aspirations of becoming a full-time international writer traveling the world with wanton abandon. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I currently have a series of small gift books out called The Circle of Life and a Poetry/Journal that many women use as a travel diary.

My new travel memoir, The Cuban Chronicles, A True Tale of Rascals, Rogues, and Romance, is now available.

The Lure, and Secrets, of Cuba
Memoir unveils the truth behind the façade of the island

Some girls have all the fun. Calgarian writer Wanda St.Hilaire has taken her passion for travel, especially to Spanish speaking countries, and has given readers an opportunity to experience Cuba from an original and spirited perspective.

In the infancy of Cuba’s tourism, Wanda St.Hilaire takes a trip to the tiny island. In spite of her love of all things Latin, she puts herself on a travel ban to Castro’s Cuba, one that lasts twenty years.

When she is forced to cancel a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico at the last minute, she finds herself in Cuba twice, on back-to-back trips. Walking into the backstreets of Havana, eyes wide open, she is pulled into a dalliance with a charismatic cubano.

In The Cuban Chronicles, St.Hilaire’s travelogue/memoir, she describes that underneath the façade of Cuba’s tourism lies the desperation of a society living mostly in abject poverty. When tourists mingle with locals, we get a glimpse of what underlies the frivolity of Cuban entanglements. St.Hilaire speaks with an authentic voice and doesn’t mince words; she recounts her own activities, emotions and opinions with refreshing honesty. The author is a natural storyteller and her vivid descriptions of people and her surroundings make Cuba come alive for the reader. Being an epistolary composition (the book is based on a series of letters to a friend in Paris), the author’s tone is warm and confidential, and peppered with touches of humor.

Think Eat, Pray, Love meets Bridget Jones’s Diary with a dash of cayenne!

Book can be purchased at www.wandasthilaire.com. Please feel free to utilize the fun selection of e-postcards on my website. They're very cool!

Thanks for visiting.

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December 9th, 2009 Well, I'm definitely in my Mexico. Within the first three hours, more men smiled and said hello to me than in six months in Calgary. I stopped at Las Palomas, which faces the ocean, for my first Mexican meal (and cerveza) and lo and behold, Eduardo, one of the waiters at Salsa Mexicana Restaurant, who was part of my lifesaving apres the France Fiasco, came up to me and said I look the same as twelve years ago. Kind man. He is now married with two children. He's the manager there and bought me a celebratory tequila and [View Full Entry]

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Week One Buenos Aires (Porteño/a - resident of Buenos Aires) In Argentina, they use the abbreviation BsAs, but for the sake of simplicity, I'll use BA. December 14th, 2008 Can't believe I'm here, in Argentina. My apartment is cute and the 'hood (I'm located on Santa Fe on the edge of the Recoleta district) looks good so far but I only went in search of food a few blocks in either direction; I've been here for just three hours. The time change is five hours ahead. There was a huge snowstorm in Calgary Friday night and some flights were stopped. Although [View Full Entry]

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Note to the reader: I lived in Puerto Vallarta in a little pink house I called Casa Rosita for four winters writing, reading, taking art and Spanish classes and living la vida dulce. Since then, many things have changed; the city has grown and the lifestyle is vastly influenced by Americans and Canadians. I write from the perspective of being a long-time visitor to Vallarta and area. Puerto Vallarta May 25th 2008 It’s official: the ex-pats have taken over my beloved Vallarta. I am sitting on the patio at Starbuck’s, the final frontier of the coffee world. I need to find [View Full Entry]

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Feliz Navidad www.wandasthilaire.com December 13th, 2007 Wow. This place brings out the Catholic in me. I have already bought a manger and lights. “Away in a manger, nooooho crib for a bed…” At the church near my casita women sit surrounded by greens making gorgeous handmade barn/mangers made from twigs, covered in moss and flowers. Now gotta find Jesus. He probably thinks so too. Abimael was at the airport with bells on to greet me. He is on a mission to teach me espanol and had a Spanish lesson book he’d bought for me, written in Oaxaca. He carried my heavy [View Full Entry]

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www.wandasthilaire.com Oaxaca: pronounced Wa-ha-ka Oaxaqueno: Wa-ha-ken-neeo (person from Oaxaca) Rate of exchange: approximately 10 pesos per Canadian dollar September 10th, 2007 Monday Day One Finally. I am in Oaxaca. We’ll call this day one; we cannot count an overnighter in a dumpy Houston airport hotel. My original Oaxaca trip was booked for September of 2006 after years of reading about the wonders of this very Mexican region. Keeping an eye on the Trip Advisor’s forum, the final hour found me making a detour due to the escalation of the teacher’s strike, fueled by the presidential elections, which had finally culminated with [View Full Entry]

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