1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book, The Truth Book (2005), was a memoir that offered the true account of my childhood as a Jehovah's Witness growing up in a violent and impoverished home. I ran away at fourteen, and the book also chronicles a little of the aftermath of that difficult decision. In addition, it explores the complexities of my Cuban American heritage and the painful legacy of parental suicide.
Publishing The Truth Book changed my life because I had previously concealed those elements of my past. They seemed too strange and shameful, and I was trying to pass as normal in academia, a profession that was and remains normatively white and middle-class. To reveal those weird and troubling things about my past, I had to overcome a great deal of fear—and decades of silence—which took a great deal of courage, so that book was different for me than all those that have followed it.
This newest book, One Brilliant Flame, draws heavily upon my Cuban American family's background in Key West in the nineteenth century, a sociopolitical moment that is little-known today, and being able to recover that history and restore it to public view has been very exciting and deeply moving to me.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
Well, I started writing made-up stories when I was extremely young, and my early published works were short stories. That just felt natural to me, as I was absorbed from early childhood in the world of storybooks and Bible stories and fairy tales.
It didn't occur to me to write a memoir until I was urged to do so in my 30s by an editor and a fellow writer. I actually felt quite shy and reluctant to do so.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
It depends somewhat on the project, but on the whole, I lay a lot of mental groundwork before I begin to draft, and sometimes much of the work has happened in my mind before I put pen to paper. I write everything longhand, which is immensely helpful in slowing my process down and forcing me to choose among various mental versions of each sentence as I write them.
I do love to revise, though, so I revise many times for various elements, and I always read every section many times aloud for rhythm, emphasis, and musicality.
4 - Where does a work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
Well, my short stories are quite happy to stay short. That's my favorite form. I generally know when I'm embarking on a book; I can feel the weight and scope of it stretching out ahead of me, even if I don't know exactly what will happen.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy it. I've heard a few awful, flat, droning readings, so I strive to make sure I provide something intense and worthwhile. It's always top-of-mind that people could just as easily be at home enjoying their favorite series or reading a wonderful book. Instead, they've invested the time and effort to come out, so I try to furnish an experience that will make them feel it was worth it.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
Yes, very much so. But I don't like to talk about them.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
To write. To risk. To wake up.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I've been very lucky and have loved working with all my editors. I've balked at a few things, certainly, but it's always a good and edifying experience, and it almost always strengthens the work, which is what we're both serving.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
"Nothing can stop you."
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to the novel to essays to memoir)? What do you see as the appeal?
Effortless. I don't see a particular appeal, exactly; it's just what happens.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I don't. A typical day begins with coffee by the fire, or coffee by an open window in warm weather, and sometimes I write in a notebook, but sometimes I don't.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
It honestly doesn't. Sometimes my heart and soul feel depleted because I'm working too hard at my dayjob or due to political horrors in the larger world, so I feel drained and sad and despairing, but that's not specific to writing. When that happens, I just try to rest and be gentle with myself and remember to do a few extra things I enjoy.
I do like Julia Cameron's notion of the artist's date very much.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The salty sea.
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Trees and plants; music, yes; history, obviously; and visual art a great deal. I tend to go through phases of obsession with various artists: Artemisia Gentileschi, Remedios Varo, Käthe Kollwitz. Film, too, especially film noir: I love its sleek aesthetic, and hardboiled narration and dialogue crack me up.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Katherine Mansfield, Jean Rhys, Colette, Margery Latimer, Sandra Cisneros, Mariama Bâ, Clarice Lispector, Louise Erdrich. Also James Joyce and William Faulkner.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Visit Churchill, Manitoba to see the Northern Lights, polar bears, and Beluga whales. Not during the same season, apparently, though.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I would like to have married a forest ranger and been his little housewife up in a tower above the trees. (So I could write, mainly.) I'm not a good cook or cleaner, so he probably would have been disappointed.
I do like teaching, so I'm glad I stumbled into that. It's an excellent dayjob. I made a very poor waitress—absent-minded, not really interested in the whole process.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I always wrote. I don't know the name of the thing inside that made me do so. I always just loved writing; it always felt natural and simple and necessary.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Great is a tricky word. I genuinely loved the new translation of Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes, and I very much enjoyed the surprise of the gentleness of the stories in Banana Yoshimoto's Dead-End Memories. In film, I'm still so moved and impressed by No Intenso Agora (In the Intense Now).
20 - What are you currently working on?
My next book of short stories and a suspense novel set outside Berlin.
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