Julia Alvarez describes writing as an act of “un-selving.” What the Dominican American poet and novelist means is that authors give life to their characters by feeding them bits of their own life. That approach to writing is only part of the material examined in “American Masters: A Life Reimagined” scheduled to debut on Valley PBS at 9 p.m. Sept. 17. The documentary is produced and directed by Adriana Bosch, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who served as series producer on the PBS series “Latino Americans” and “Latin Music USA.” Alvarez has put so much of herself in works such as How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents published in 1991 and In the Time of the Butterflies in 1994 that turning over her life to be examined and revealed by another was a difficult decision. “The emphasis is what you’ve written. So, to have the light shine on you was a little unnerving. But I trusted Adriana and her passion for the work,” Alvarez says. “I knew that that would be a good part of the focus with giving the context of what is that life that feeds the life of those characters. It is really a credit to Adriana that I felt that level of comfort, because I’ve shied away from that.” Bosch collected footage in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic that features extensive interviews with Alvarez, her family and her literary contemporaries. The production looks at the writer’s life from an idyllic, privileged childhood in the Dominican Republic to a life of exile in New York City.   The documentary explores the story of the writer who burst onto the literary scene and blazed a trail for a generation of Latino authors. Alvarez’s work includes three nonfiction books, three poetry collections, 11 books for children and young adults and seven literary novels.  Alvarez points out there was a time in her life when people would tell her how much they loved her books. Then it became them saying their mom loves my books and finally their grandmothers. “You think we’re not that far apart in age, and then a few years go by and then it gets wider and wider because it's always the young ones coming in, but you’re getting older,” Alvarez says. Alvarez has won numerous awards for her work, including the Pura Belpré and Américas Awards for her books for young readers, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. Her latest novel is The Cemetery of Untold Stories and she is currently assembling Visitations, a collection of poems, to be published in 2025. Bosch says, “In our film, Dominican poet Elizabeth Acevedo introduces Julia by saying that ‘Julia belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Women Latino writers, along with Isabel Allende and Sandra Cisneros. She was among the pioneers in creating a new literature that expanded the meaning of the ‘American Mainstream.’” Bosch first met Julia Alvarez in 2013 while working on the six-part series “Latino Americans.” The director became enthralled with the writer as she told stories. It was at that moment Bosch knew that Alvarez was the right person to be the subject of a documentary. After completing two other projects, Bosch began working on the program for “American Masters.” What the filmmaker discovered and is shown in the production is that Alvarez always has been focused on her writing. Unlike some authors who write knowing their works will eventually become the basis for a TV show or film, Alvarez leaves that approach to others. “I am in service to the fiction that I write but let a thousand flowers bloom. If someone wants to do something with that story, I don’t own the story. I don’t even own it once I write it down,” Alvarez says. “Once it’s written down and published, it belongs to my readers, it’s out there, and I don’t go seeking for something else except getting the [expletive deleted] book done. “And so, if someone else feels inspired to do it, that’s fine. Through my agent, I’ve been more careful to be sure that when that happens, that at least it’s something that I can live with, you know, the representation there.” When her book In the Time of the Butterflies was turned into a 2001 TV movie starring Salma Hayek, Alvarez rejected the first few script attempts. She didn’t like that the writers had thrown every cliché into the film while ignoring the politics of the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. The stand Alvarez took in writing the book and seeing it adapted became important as it became a major factor in Nov. 25 being declared the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. She continues to use her words to try to make the world a better place.