Book Giveaway - Neruda on the Park

[00:00:09] What's good, Black and Published Family? Yes, I'm still on hiatus and I'm trying to read my way through everything that I can get my hands on. But I wanted to pop into your ears real quick to tell you how you can win a copy of Clavis

[00:00:23] Natera's Neruda on the Park, which was recently released in Paperback. The Giveaway box includes a copy of the Paperback, a bookmark, and a recipe card because as you'll come to find out, Eusebia's love language is feeding people.

[00:00:40] And if you don't know what I'm talking about, this is even more of a reason for you to enter the Giveaway. All you have to do is follow Black and Published and Clavis Natera on both Twitter and Instagram. And then of course, like this post.

[00:00:54] The drawing will close one week from today on June 26, 2023 at 11.59 p.m., at which point two winners will be randomly selected. We'll notify you by DM and request your address for shipment.

[00:01:09] Oh, and if you want a taste of what the book is about, check out the replay of my conversation with Clavis coming to you in three, two, one. Peace. We're good. Okay. All right, so my first question is when did you know that you were a writer?

[00:01:32] It took a while for me to figure out that I was a writer. I mean, I always loved telling stories and especially as a kid, I loved making people laugh. And it took a long time for me to realize that I wanted to be a writer.

[00:01:49] And I think the first sign for me was falling in love with books. I fell in love with books when I was in middle school here in New York City. And there was a point at which in high school, I remember thinking like this is like

[00:02:02] the most beautiful, transportative experience. And I was growing up in a really, really rough environment. There was a lot of violence in my house. And books for me were always the escape. But somewhere around, I would say 17, 18 years old, I was like, I want to do this

[00:02:21] for real. So I took my first creative writing class when I was a freshman at Skidmore. Okay. But I also noticed you saying the book that you worked in finance for like 20 years. So let's talk about always wanting to do this thing, but not doing it until later.

[00:02:40] Well, for some of us, the truth is that pursuing a creative career is really difficult. I mean, I grew up in a family where there just wasn't a lot of money. And I didn't have, right?

[00:02:50] The netting that a lot of my peers had coming out of college to attempt to pursue careers in the arts. So I just knew that it was just going to take longer for me. So when I graduated college, I started putting together my application for MFA programs.

[00:03:09] I got into NYU and at that point, I was already working full time in an insurance company. I knew that it didn't make a lot of sense for me to go into graduate school and get into a lot of that.

[00:03:21] So my employer at the time was like, well, we'll give you tuition reimbursement. And NYU had offered me 50% scholarships. So that would have been like a free master's degree. And then they also offered me study days and flexibility.

[00:03:34] So yeah, so then it was like the best of both worlds, even though it meant that I was working a full time job as I went to graduate school. And being so supported to pursue the arts, was it then that you made

[00:03:46] a commitment that you were going to write something and put it out in the world? Because I know you mentioned that Neruda on the Park is a 15 year journey for you. Yeah. I mean, the way that it worked is that I started writing Neruda on the Park at

[00:03:59] the heels of a failed book. And so my thesis book that I wrote at NYU, I got an agent right out of my program and she was very enthusiastic that we would be able to sell it. So we started working on it.

[00:04:17] She ended up leaving the publishing industry altogether. She actually ghosted me and because I was so young, I was only 24. I just let like seven months go. And I was like, oh, I guess I haven't heard from her. Wonder what happened to her?

[00:04:30] And then she came back to me and apologized. But you know, at the time I was young, so I didn't even think to go to other members of that agency to be like, oh, you know, so and so left and I was her client.

[00:04:42] But yeah, so like I just then went and found myself another person who again, I thought would have the capacity to help me sell my book. But that person also ended up being someone who was a little bit on the outside of the industry.

[00:04:57] And she just didn't have the influence to get people to read through the whole book. I ended up finding someone through my network that wanted to buy my book. But then that person, that editor ended up not having the support in house to buy my book.

[00:05:13] And I just became very disenchanted. I was really heartbroken. And, you know, that when I had been out of school for a few years and I just I felt really embarrassed. You know, I felt like all my friends were getting book deals and my

[00:05:28] friends were doing so well. And I just felt like very outside and it hurt a lot to be around people who were succeeding at it. And I was doing really well in my career. Like I was just working and getting promoted and getting, you know,

[00:05:44] just climbing the ladder of corporate America. And that became very seductive, you know, buying the nice purses and going to the nice dinners and like having the sexy dates, you know? So I just was like, you know what?

[00:05:58] This is obviously not meant to happen for me right now. So let me just kind of park it. And so it was like at that point that I started working on Neruda on the park.

[00:06:06] And I was doing it as like a fun project that I would just pick up and drop off. I would like pick it up for my birthday. Pick it up on New Year's, you know, making a resolution like this is the year I finished my book.

[00:06:18] But the thing is, like we all know whether it's writing or any other career, like unless you're really persistent and working on becoming a better writer and working on seriously standing up your career, it's not going to happen by touching a project once or twice a year.

[00:06:36] And so that's part of the reason I think that it took such a long time. But you know, it's so interesting because I went through a personal situation in my own life where like my son had to go through a bone marrow transplant.

[00:06:50] And, you know, the first one failed and like my daughter was the donor and we were going through at the second time. And I just remember sitting in that hospital room in New York City and being like, what have I done with my life?

[00:07:03] Like what am I doing? It was one of those moments of reckoning where you're dealing with such despair that I think it kind of clarifies a lot of things. And so, you know, I remember just trying to negotiate with God, like, please save

[00:07:16] my kid and, you know, I'll get myself together. I'll get back into this writing. And, you know, my son was fine and, you know, my daughter degrading recovery after donating bone marrow cells for the second time to her brother.

[00:07:30] And when I came back, I mean, once everything was settled in my family, I came back with this like eagerness. I was like, you know what? I know it's going to be hard. But I felt like my superpower in life is that I'm a really good student

[00:07:45] and I'm a really hard worker. So I was like, I'm pretty sure that if I just start on this journey and I refuse to give up this time that, you know, and don't treat it like a hobby, treated like a serious pursuit that it eventually will happen.

[00:08:01] And listen, it still was four years later, right? My book got published, so nothing has been fast for me. And at one point I just decided, you know, during those four years when I was going to workshops and trying to build my skills

[00:08:16] and really trying to make this book work, you know, I had to really like have this reckoning with myself where it was like, well, even if the book doesn't sell, I'm going to be writing and writing makes me really happy.

[00:08:28] And I'm going to find a way to keep writing, even if I'm never holding a book in my hand. And that's the way that I came back into the world and like became really consistent.

[00:08:40] But yeah, it was it's been a lot of no's along the way, you know? I have a similar story and I can't imagine. So in getting back into the love of writing after you you made the deal with God that you're going to get yourself together

[00:08:56] and get back to the thing that you love. You mentioned, you know, taking workshops and trying to sharpen your skills for this wildly layered book that we now have. What did that look like? Admitting to yourself that you needed more help

[00:09:10] to to pull off this thing that you were conceiving? Yeah, thank you for that question. Well, let me just start out by saying that part of what's the problem with being part of some of these elite programs is that you really do start building this sense

[00:09:26] that it's like meant to be and meant to happen. And so, you know, when I was at Skidmore, I started with Steven Milhauser, who's like a fabulous writer and he won a Pulitzer when I was his student.

[00:09:38] So to me it was like, oh, they're just handing out Pulitzer. I really did feel like, yeah, yeah, we're going to this is going to happen. This can happen to to people, right? And then when I went to NYU, I was working with Paul Marshall,

[00:09:50] who's, you know, who was a Caribbean black woman writing about girlhood in Harlem and in, you know, New York City. And she had a Guggenheim and she had a MacArthur. And I worked with E.L. Doctoral. And it was like these giants of literature where within my reach

[00:10:07] and they were telling me like, this is amazing writing. Like, this is going to happen. Why are you working a full time job? Like, you should be doing this full time. So I think that I was really ill prepared for failure. Like, I just wasn't emotionally prepared

[00:10:22] for what it means to be a Latina, to be like a black immigrant in this country. Like, it's just not going to happen as easily, right? And I kept reading books that were, I mean, no offense, but that were kind of mediocre.

[00:10:34] And I'm like, well, why won't somebody publish my mediocre book? And so, you know, I mean, in hindsight, I'm very glad nobody published a mediocre book, you know. But I just remember being devastated. And, you know, each time I would come back into writing,

[00:10:52] I still had this sense of like outrage. You know, if I'm really honest with you, that it was like the whole industry like, you know, stacked against me. And I came at my writing from a place of, I think a lot of pain and a lot of rage

[00:11:06] that wasn't helpful to the book. And so to get back to your question about like, how did it, how did I turn that kind of failure or the inability to do it into like a plan? You know, during my corporate years, I became a project manager.

[00:11:21] And after my son recovered from his illness, it was at that moment where like something clicked within me that was like, why don't you just use the skills that you've developed in your corporate job to build a writing career?

[00:11:36] And so, you know, I set out with three main components that I think are like the tenets that I wanted to build a writing career. And I started out with the concept of community. So I was like, you know what?

[00:11:48] I think that in order to have a career that's worthwhile, I want to be in service to my community and give as much as I expect to get back. So, you know, what I think holds us back sometimes is that

[00:12:03] it's like very lonely, even though it seems like the space is crowded now with, you know, BIPOC writers. There's still very few of us. And so community was the first thing. The second thing was craft.

[00:12:13] And the fact is that there's a lot of problems with the publishing industry. But there's also like our own accountability as people and as artists that you need to be better. So the book wasn't working. Like my book didn't get picked up not because people were set

[00:12:29] against publishing a person of color, like publishing the story. It was because the story didn't work, right? And so I just went back to school. I went to as many writing workshops as I could. And I was very fortunate.

[00:12:42] And I'll say this out loud is that I was able to give myself, right? A very privileged education because I was able to handpick writers. I adored and I was able to travel.

[00:12:54] I mean, I went to this quiet, which is in Lisbon because I wanted to go to Portugal, you know, and I spent two weeks like learning with, you know, some incredible writers there. Then I came back. I applied to Brett Lowe.

[00:13:05] If I got into Brett Lowe, I went to the Juniper Institute where, you know, again, I got to work with a writer that I loved who like really taught me about like writing into wildness and like, you know,

[00:13:15] how to both let the book be a wild thing, but I controlled wildness. You know, it was just for me like this commitment to really learn how to how to write and like write better because I knew I could write beautiful sentences.

[00:13:31] And I knew that I could write like I know how to write, but writing a book is different than writing. You know what I mean? Like being able to pull off an entire story. It's a very different skill set.

[00:13:42] And so it was probably two years after intensively taking workshops that I was able to write a book that I could get an agent for. And then the last part was like the business aspect of it, which I think

[00:13:54] a lot of times we just as writers are very much like, oh, it's so dirty to think about business. I'd rather not know. And it's like, no, like we need to know what the hell is going on. We need to like think strategically about our careers.

[00:14:10] And that was something that for me, I knew because I had been really strategic in navigating my career in corporate America that I was like, there's a way to do this. There's a way to build a network.

[00:14:22] You know, there's a way to invest in friendships and not like take, take, take. But like who are the people that can that you can help lift up and that will help you get lifted? Right. And so those were like the three tenets.

[00:14:35] It was community craft and then this kind of strategic part of the business aspect, and I'm still working on it. OK, that's a lot. It is a lot. But I want to talk about the last point that you were talking about

[00:14:48] the business of it and the business of publishing and what you were saying before about even though there are problems within the industry, it was still something that you wanted to be a part of. So once you took that time to take workshops and further develop your craft

[00:15:04] and then write the novel and lay in the agent, what has the journey been like since that point? Oh my God, this is such a joyful part. I mean, the first thing is that nobody understands the joy of holding your book as a book.

[00:15:22] I mean, you know, my mind, I was like, oh, yeah, it's going to be great. It's going to be like holding my and I love my two babies. But this feeling is so much better because it was like 20 years in the making. You know what I mean?

[00:15:32] It's like it does not compare. I'm like, my kids can be mad at me when they get older. If they ever find this conversation is the first time I've said it out loud, you know? But it's like it is an absolute joy.

[00:15:46] I quit my corporate job before I sold this book. I just remember I had an agent, but the book wasn't ready. Like we were going through revisions and then the pandemic happened and all of a sudden my kids are home full time.

[00:16:03] And, you know, the teachers were a godsend, but we didn't have the infrastructure with zooms and different things to do. So it was very scattered and difficult. And my job was just as demanding as ever.

[00:16:15] And I just remember like I was just like in a very precarious situation emotionally, I mean, I was getting up at four or five o'clock in the morning to write and edit this book. And I felt it like I felt like I'm so close.

[00:16:29] And I felt like it was just about to slip away from me one more time. And so I just had like this this chat with my husband and I was like, I need I need to quit this job. I just can't do it, you know?

[00:16:40] And again, my husband and I were very in sync about like whatever sacrifices we had to do to our lifestyle in order to make this transition. And so when I quit my job in August of 2020, I still hadn't sold this book.

[00:16:54] And I remember being like, oh, my God, what have I done? I mean, I grew up with very little money. And, you know, here I am giving up a job where I was making like six figures. I had like a ridiculous bonus. I had stock options.

[00:17:07] I mean, it was just like, oh, my goodness, what have I done? And thinking about my children and their legacy. And so I think I just also came back into the revision process with more urgency. Then my agent read it and he thought it was ready to go.

[00:17:23] But yeah, we took the book to market and we sold the book within two weeks. And then you wait, then you wait a year and a half for the book to be a book. Right? I mean, it's just like such a long process

[00:17:34] that when this book landed in my hands, I posted a little video on Instagram of like the ARC's when they came because I thought I was going to be tough. I was like, I am not crying. OK, and then I felt it.

[00:17:45] And I was like, oh, my goodness, like it's a book. And I had that same rush of emotion when the hard cover arrived because it's so beautiful and solid. And I knew everything I had to go through for the book.

[00:17:58] Like I cried, I laughed right in this book. You know, I had my heart broken, you know? And so it's just it's like a whole life in it. And so it's it's a very joyful, joyful place to be with the book. Oh, that makes me so happy.

[00:18:15] So can we do a reading? You have it nearby and read a little something from it. And then I get to ask you all of my questions because they're fresh. Black and published family, it's time for the reading. Naura on the Park is about a family under crisis.

[00:18:33] And that's a direct quote from Clavis. When gentrification arrives in the fictional New York City neighborhood of Northar Park, Luz Guerrero, an Ivy League educated lawyer, takes it as an inevitability. But her mother, Eusebia, decides to resist

[00:18:51] and puts a plan in place to bring the high rise luxury construction to an end. Here's Clavis. All right, so I will read this part that I like to read out loud because I think it gives people a really good sense of the stakes from chapter four.

[00:19:08] And I think all anyone needs to know is that the mother and her friends have just walked across the street from their building through this park called Northar Park to standing up building adjacent to a tenement that has been torn down and they're looking down into this tenement.

[00:19:28] Eusebia willed herself to stop the sensation of movement, of falling and twirling through the air in opposite directions at once. A nauseous feeling. Usually, this was the moment that forced her to close her eyes and seek lower ground, not today.

[00:19:46] On weak knees, she walked to where the women stood and inhaled deeply as she leaned over. Beneath them, it was as if a bomb had exploded. Bricks, pipes, concrete, refrigerator, stoves, even farther away, discarded toys. A doll with matted blonde hair, a blue truck missing a wheel.

[00:20:05] She was puzzled at the sharpness of her vision. How could they have done all of that in three days? How could they possibly have gotten that done so fast? One of the women asked. They discarded that old building to make room for what? The tongues asked her.

[00:20:21] Eusebia never imagined there would be this much space. I have an idea on how to stop all of this from happening, she said. The tongues looked at her curiously. What if we just scare everyone into thinking this neighborhood is really bad?

[00:20:34] She said the women's mild thinking at a joke, brilliant in its simplicity. How would we do that? They asked. Eusebia could clearly see the unvoiced thought that it would be too easy to work. Eusebia spoke in a confident way as if this conversation had already happened.

[00:20:52] She explained she meant recruiting their neighbors who would act out crimes throughout the neighborhood with other volunteers, who'd be the victims of these crimes. You mean fake crimes? They asked. No, not fake, real, but be crazy enough to move to a neighborhood. I mean, a crime spree.

[00:21:10] What kind of crimes they asked? Eusebia was quiet. She had come up with a list, but she knew if they participated, helped formulate it, they'd be in. What would scare you? She asked. What would be bad enough?

[00:21:22] This is the kind of idea that can destroy a community, they said. That can save it, she corrected. The women stared at her worried. They understood she was serious. She'd moved too fast. Eusebia extended her arm around the neighborhood, lovingly sweeping all

[00:21:38] that could see over by their side of the park, cowl shipping store, the cleaners owned by the Chinitos who were born in the yard, the liquor store, the dentist. She wrapped her arm around herself, signaling what they couldn't see.

[00:21:52] The smell of water boiling for vegetables of meat, Sicilian pans, laundry being folded, children being kissed, phone calls back home to people who needed help, who would be lost without the support of those who had traveled here.

[00:22:06] We can just come up with a list of things people are scared of, she said. The women exchange looks. They spoke to each other with the simple speed of a blink. But now Eusebia was in on it, a knee-strapper. Questions floated among all four of them.

[00:22:21] Could it work? Was it worth trying? What else as an alternative? It was true. Fear would work. Fear always worked. She turned her body away from them to the park. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Lose or blood in me or must be worried.

[00:22:37] But she'd care for them later. Now she turned her attention to the destruction beneath them. It taught that something in the women, but Eusebia was the only one who called out the dead boy's name. She had a strange feeling of being anchored to the tarmac on the floor

[00:22:52] for a while. It made sense when the blinding sky turned into a black sky and the sun was replaced by a yellow mark moon. There was complete stillness and silence in the worksite. The man had gone for the day.

[00:23:06] If we don't stop it, Eusebia said, it will not be stopped. This is the kind of idea that might destroy, they said again. Eusebia followed their gaze around Nother Park as they took in the yellow light that pulled softly from the windows of the brown stones

[00:23:21] that flanked the park with halos of rainbows buttering that light. There was a sound of the television, of music, of laughter, the natural noises of a neighborhood that shut the hostility outside what they'd made here. Somewhere far away, a baby cried and newborn

[00:23:38] by the sound of the urgency in its voice as if underlying what was truly at stake. It wasn't just about them. And so impossibly, the tongues agreed to go along. OK, so you mentioned earlier that, you know, you had this wild concept for a book

[00:23:56] and that you took workshops where they encouraged you to let the wildness go but also to try to control it. When you first conceived this novel, did it have as many layers as it does now that when we that when we read it?

[00:24:09] Because you touch so many things and to sum it up as a family in crisis is a very nice bow. But there's so much more in there. No, not at all. I mean, this book started out honestly as like a very different concept.

[00:24:28] I mean, the idea of the book was the same where you have like this young woman who comes back home and from college and, you know, she's graduated from law school and she has this this fabulous job and she feels very isolated from her community,

[00:24:45] even though she's still very much a part of it. So, you know, the very first iteration of this book was like a first person narrative about lose, you know, going a little crazy in the city with a lot of dates and a lot of sex

[00:24:59] and like, you know, trying to find herself. It was like a coming of age story. And then in the background, like there are all these crimes that are happening in the community and the gentrification was happening. But it was very difficult to pull that off

[00:25:15] because lose didn't have any idea that, you know, her mother was involved in this crime spree. And so, you know, that that version of it, even though I worked on it for a couple of years, that version of it didn't work.

[00:25:27] So eventually I realized, oh, this is a book about a community. So it should be told from like a community point of view. And in that version of the book, there was a lot more of the history of the community

[00:25:38] and how much activism had happened in the past. And then there was like this thing I did in the middle of the book, which was like the tongues, these three women who are like cheese mosa's and are like these gossip queens. They were more mythical in that version.

[00:25:54] Like they had the ability to kind of go in and out of people's thoughts. And so they were roving through characters and everyone that was involved in the crime spree got their own chapter. So that again, like the next the next version of it got collapsed

[00:26:08] and a lot of those didn't carry forward. So, you know, I think when people think about the complexities and how layered the book is, it's because I think every iteration of the book that existed before its current form now, which is a story

[00:26:24] that is told from the perspective of loose and the perspective of her mother, Osevia. And then every few chapters, there's like a little interruption that comes from these women, right? But yeah, so like that's part of the reason why I think the book is so rich.

[00:26:37] When you step away from it, the book feels like it's big, right? And I always thought about the book in a way as an artifact that the book itself is an object. The way a building is an object that would be like this sense of abstractions.

[00:26:52] So, yeah, so I just feel like I was like, I'm walling out like I'm putting all the time in the book and whoever can hang with me is going to hang. And I was so fortunate because my my editor really understood

[00:27:04] the concept of it and understood that, like, at a certain point, you're supposed to be unsettled by this book. I wanted the book to feel like, you know what it feels like to be an immigrant in this country, you know, to like live for 30, 40 years

[00:27:18] and for someone to decide that because you don't have a document that legitimizes your existence, you can be sent back to another place. You know, like the way that others can decide that you do not belong here,

[00:27:31] that this is not your home for someone who was born in this country and happened to be born of people without documents that legitimize their existence. You know, even with the climate crisis, one of the main characters, the love interest.

[00:27:44] And I was like, I want a reader to feel unsettled and I want a reader to feel like what in the world just happened because that's what it means to be an immigrant in this country. Like every day the world can turn upside down

[00:27:59] and you have no idea what just happened. And I hope that it's a pleasurable experience mostly, but also being unsettled and being jarred is the point too. It's a slow burn because you start off with this, the different pieces

[00:28:16] and then the fire gets hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter in having all of those background characters and the issues with the environment and the climate crisis amidst the big central focus of this neighborhood.

[00:28:31] I found, I think two themes that I got to was that, you know, the consequences of not speaking up was one. And then also what are you willing to fight for and whether or not it's worth it? And when you mentioned like the climate crisis

[00:28:50] and the feeling of being an immigrant, it reminded me of something that your character, the love interest says about what he's doing. He says, I'm not in the business of making tall buildings. I'm working to transform the way humans live

[00:29:02] to mirror the experiences we have today, like smelling fresh air or feeling rain but indoors underground for when the time calls for it. And he's very like matter of fact that, you know, everybody is not going to be able to afford this existence. And he doesn't care.

[00:29:19] And so in talking about the immigrant experience and being othered, even though you've had so much time in this country, I see those threads of like, you know, it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from.

[00:29:33] If something's not for you, you're not going to have access to it. Was that one of the drivers in you creating this this multi-layered story? Absolutely. I mean, thank you. You're such a pleasure to talk to because you're such a sophisticated reader.

[00:29:49] Thank you. Listen, I'm going to beat up and goodreads because people just do not understand what I'm trying to do, which is fine. Right? Like sometimes we take risks. But yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think that part part of my experience in being

[00:30:03] in corporate America is like how privilege shields certain people from understanding what the world is really like. And so I, you know, I am so invested in this book in making sure that that privilege, the way it works.

[00:30:22] I mean, so lose fall in love with the developer of this building, Hudson. And Hudson is it's like a lovely person. You know what I mean? Like he cares deeply about lose. He's very attractive.

[00:30:37] You know, they have a lot of sexy time together, which also heats it up. When you were talking about the book heating up, I was like, especially the loose parts. Yes, it's like different kinds of heat, right? Like a stevia's heat is very different from like loses heat.

[00:30:51] And, you know, it was really important to me to think about the ways in which, you know, when we talk about coming of age and finding our purpose in life, very often those are thought to be like higher class or privileged kind of

[00:31:05] mindsets, right? Like who gets the right or the privilege to pursue their true calling in life, you know, or who is under pressure to just survive. And so the climate crisis to me is also like a very interesting lens

[00:31:22] through which to look at privilege, because if we want to make this kind of multi layered vision of the world, right? Like what are the concerns that we have? I wasn't going to flatten it and you hit it on the head. I mean, silence to me.

[00:31:38] There's a way in which we become complicit in our own trauma, you know, because sometimes we are unable to or unwilling to voice our desires or voice our pain and, you know, this idea of like the inability to do something

[00:31:57] because you've been traumatized and the unwillingness to do something because you just are bound by certain societal rules. I think it keeps a lot of marginalized communities from living with respect and dignity and having a shot at a good life.

[00:32:13] So that was that was a very critical aspect that I wanted to explore. And then, you know, like capitalism and toxic masculinity is all over this book. And I think that that's also like we can just sit here and pretend

[00:32:26] that there isn't a huge way in which like men are crazy and ruining the world, you know? And so I also wanted to like take that to task, right? The way in which masculinity and capitalism are tools of oppression.

[00:32:45] That but it seems that it's the perception that when marginalized or oppressed people fight back against capitalism or patriarchy or toxic masculinity and decide to do something that they believe is good for themselves, that is seen as psychotic. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:33:06] I mean, for me it was so important that El Sevilla's behavior be fueled by rage. And I think that, you know, as women, we are immediately thought of as psychotic, right? Like the minute that a woman, you know, rightfully exercises the right to anger,

[00:33:29] we are immediately thought of as as not being logical and as not being intelligent and as not being capable. And again, like I think if we if we want to complicate these stories, right? And and I wanted to honor what I know to be true about my community

[00:33:47] and about what I think to be true from my experience as a woman and in talking about womanhood is that I think the greatest harm that is done to us isn't done by systems, right? It isn't done by, you know, capitalized patriarchy, capitalized capitalism, capitalized toxic masculinity, right?

[00:34:07] Like the harms that happen to every human being are often carried out through the complicity of the people in our lives. And sometimes they're men and sometimes they're women. And so for me it was really important not to make people into monsters because that's not the truth.

[00:34:22] But to think about these men who love deeply, care deeply but end up causing harm. The end of the book leaves a very unsettled finish. Like it's it's over, but it's a very unsettled finish. And I wonder in ending the book in the way that you did,

[00:34:45] is it because that. As is mentioned throughout that, you know, there is another generation that will come behind them that will have to make similar decisions. And so Luz is trying to course correct from what the decisions

[00:35:00] that you said, be a maid and even her mother and grandmother when they were telling her, you know, there's a place where you don't have to cry, there's a place inside your body where you can hold your pain and loses like no more.

[00:35:10] Is that why we have these divergent endings where Luz is all geared up to go in one direction? But you said, be a is not. Well, you know, I think it's interesting because my intention with the ending was absolutely

[00:35:26] to honor the sacrifices that our mothers have made for us and being clear sided that oftentimes our mothers have made some really terrible mistakes, you know, and that we should hold them accountable for their errors, but also understand that for those of us

[00:35:43] who are able to live a really different life than the lives our mothers were able to live more often than not. It is not just because of our own individual strength or our own individual resiliency. It is often because of our mother's sacrifice.

[00:35:58] And so I wanted to, on the one hand, honor that and pay homage to that. And I consider the ending to be a happy ending because I consider the ending to be really like Eusebia being able to triumph over pain and being able to release

[00:36:17] the pain that she has held on to. I think it's really important to me that both the women in this book find a path to personal liberation. Yeah, I think in the end they chose themselves. But going back to this concept of silence and sacrifice,

[00:36:36] you mentioned that, you know, when you're able to do something different, it is a privilege. So I want to ask what has sacrifice allowed you to benefit or privilege from? Oh, that's a tough one. You're not giving me all my feet. I'm sweating. Oh, my goodness.

[00:36:54] A lot of mental power. Right. What day is today? Thursday morning? Yeah. I mean, sacrifice for me how I think of it has how I benefited. There's the immediate I think reality of being an immigrant in this country.

[00:37:15] And I think a lot of times about my mother making this bold decision to come to a country where she didn't speak the language and she was working 24 hours a day as a home attendant after working in a factory for like 14 hour days

[00:37:34] and all of that just to bring us. And so, you know, for me, there's like a very, very clear and linear way in which I see like the physical deterioration of my mother's body because eventually through her work of caring for the elderly, my mother suffered

[00:37:53] like a great injury to her spinal cord that to this day causes her great deals of pain. And so it's like a very concrete way in which I see my mother's sacrifice and her hard work as a worker here in this country

[00:38:11] translating to me being able to live this life where I use my hands. I get to sit down every day. What I'll say, though, that is that it's also very complicated on the other hand by my own sense of obligation.

[00:38:27] So when I think about, you know, the path that I could have taken, I mean, some of it was I didn't know when I was in my 20s that there were fellowships and residencies and ways in which you could make a life as a writer

[00:38:44] that wouldn't look very different from this concept of success we have in this country of material success. So maybe I wouldn't have all the wonderful, nice things I was able to accumulate, right? But I probably would have been closer to like a happier life.

[00:39:00] And so, you know, I don't regret anything I've done because, you know, being able to help my mom and being financially stable where, you know, in my family, there's a lot of people that can say that it feels like this privilege.

[00:39:16] But also within my own life, I feel like the sacrifices I made to have success cost me in terms of like the years it took me to actually make it as a writer. And I still see that as a privilege. You know what I mean?

[00:39:31] It's like I still see all these years that I spent in corporate America where I learned to have all these skills. I mean, I have certifications that at any moment, you know, if things go left, I have the right and the ability to write my life.

[00:39:49] In real life, though, you know, everybody doesn't have the ability to control a life, you know? And largely it depends on where you stand in society and what society seems to be those who are worthy of living with dignity and respect.

[00:40:06] And so I think a lot about that, but I think also about like my family and the women in my family who have really been so strong against odds that I think people don't even comprehend like how truly difficult it is to survive in this country

[00:40:24] when you're an immigrant and when you are a person who isn't white presenting as an immigrant, you know? Yes. Thank you. Wow. Um, so then I want to switch to a speed round in a little game before I let you go for the morning.

[00:40:40] So what is your favorite book of all time is the Blue as I by Toni Morrison? Who is your favorite author? I think it's probably a tie between Toni Morrison, Julia Alvarez and Gabriel Garcia-Mercas. What is something that you miss the most from the Dominican Republic?

[00:41:05] I miss the rain on a tent roof, you know? When I was a child before my mother traveled, we were very poor. And I just remember like the sound of the rain on a tent roof and it being so soothing and then it being really scary

[00:41:24] because if it's a lot of rain, it sounds really loud. I'm sure I'm romanticizing it now because I don't think I've actually heard that sound in over 30 years. And what is your favorite food from home? Oh, my favorite fruit is mangoes. I mean, I just love mangoes.

[00:41:42] I would eat them every day for breakfast like to do. If money were no object, where would you go? What would you do and where would you live? I would definitely live by the sea because that's what I feel like. Always the most inspired.

[00:41:59] And my life wouldn't look that different, though. I have to be honest with you. I feel like incredibly blessed and privileged to say that, you know, I would write and I would teach and I would spend lots of time with my kids, lots of time with my husband.

[00:42:14] So maybe more time with friends, you know? I think if if I had more financial stability, I would just get people to work less and spend more time with me. Everybody works so much.

[00:42:28] I don't get to see the people I love as much as I wish I did. I understand. What brings you joy? I think laughter. I think play. So my children are eight and ten. And they just love doing somersaults and jumping and riding bikes and telling silly jokes.

[00:42:53] But yeah, that brings me a lot of joy, just being with my children and playing with them. And what brings you peace? Reading. Reading is the most peaceful act for me. All right. So my game is called Rewriting the Classics.

[00:43:06] Name one book you wish you would have written. Oh, my God, I love it. Name a book where you want to change the ending and how would you do it? You know, I actually think I've just very recently been rereading

[00:43:18] Julia Avers, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent. And I was thinking about how, you know, in Julia Avers' work, so much of the work that she was doing was like dealing with colorism

[00:43:32] and dealing with privilege in a way that, like, I didn't know when I was a kid. I remember thinking when I was growing up, like I wanted to change some of her endings. And like now as I read them and as I think about even parts of books

[00:43:46] where I feel like they haven't aged well, right? Like we can see some like problematic tendencies that writers have in the way they're presenting black people or the way they're dealing with issues of colorism or sexism. And I just feel like the older I get,

[00:44:02] a lot of times I think when we want to change endings because we want to feel better. So you know, so I'm going to say no, I'm going to resist. Even though as you're asking me, I'm all like, I can make a five books.

[00:44:14] I'm going to say no, Clavis, no, she rewriting people's books. All right. So then my final question for the game. Name one book you think is overrated and why? Oh, my goodness, overrated books. I'm not getting myself in trouble. I see you. I see you.

[00:44:35] But let me say this because I feel like I'm going to sell like such a hater. People are going to be like, Clavis Hayton. I think male writers sometimes get away with writing books and being called masterful at a rate that I think is out of proportion

[00:44:56] with their talent where women writers, you know, are very often given the shaft, especially awards. You know, I think they've really come a long way. I'm acknowledging the mastery of like women writers, but I just still think it's crazy when I look at the Booker Prize,

[00:45:15] the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize, the National Book Awards. You know, it's only in the last couple of decades that women have been granted, you know, admission into like the highest, the highest levels and like immigrant women. And here I'm talking about really immigrant women

[00:45:34] who have like born in a different country, come here, live our lives here and writing about stories that are centered on the lives of immigrant women. And when I think about Duis Dantikad, who's brilliant in her books, have carried me in so many

[00:45:48] important and meaningful ways, Paul Marshall, you know, there's just a lot of women that I think like never got their flowers. And I think male writers can land in a space where like very quickly they're established as voices of their generation.

[00:46:05] And I think women like we don't get that as much and that out to stop. I think it was Tiari Jones who said in an interview a few years ago that, you know, women write more books, but men get the most awards and acknowledging that disparity.

[00:46:22] So my final question for you today is when you are no longer here and are among the ancestors, what would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you left behind? Oh, that's a beautiful question. Thank you, Nekisha.

[00:46:41] You know, I think what I want my work to do in the world and I think about the legacies of like Anne Perry, Julia Alvarez, Toni Morrison, Paul Marshall, Duis Dantikad, you know, Angie Cruz, like all of these people, some are living, some are not.

[00:47:02] And I really like I want to center my work on women and I want to center my work on both the beauty and the pain of what it means to be alive. And, you know, I'm really concerned with the ways in which privilege and capitalism affect our souls.

[00:47:26] And so, you know, what I what I hope people will think about my work when I'm no longer here is that I was able to tell the truth with beauty.