Annell López wants to celebrate Newark in her debut collection, I’ll Give You a Reason (Feminist Press, 2024), winner of the fifth annual Louise Meriwether First Book Prize from Feminist Press. A Dominican immigrant who grew up with her family in Newark, New Jersey, López recently received her MFA from the University of New Orleans, but the pride she maintains for Newark is evident in each one of the stories in this collection.
Against complicated and familiar backdrops of an ever-changing, rapidly gentrifying city, López’s characters navigate grief through multiple types of losses. Some carry nostalgia for a neighborhood that doesn’t quite exist anymore. Other characters discover their parents have withheld the critical fact of their undocumented status. Still other characters mourn the sudden and unexpected death of a spouse. López’s characters find themselves struggling to connect—not only with each other but with their own emotions—hence the title of the collection. In the titular short story, a young girl is fascinated by a schoolmate’s ability to cry with abandon. When she tries this herself, she imagines her mother’s voice, ingrained in her, chastising her for having nothing to cry about—or she’ll give her a reason. Through each story, López succeeds in providing a sense of hope. Despite societal demands on people of color to perform a certain way, López suggests there may be a “finish line” in sight where her characters may one day cross the interior and “imaginary threshold of sorrow, the frontier that divided joy from pain,” and find a suitable and authentic release.
I spoke with Annell López by email about the stories in this collection, what makes Newark so special, the role music plays in her creative process, and the privilege of being able to express yourself.
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The Rumpus: I love that, right off the bat, the first story, “Great American Scream Machine,” references a New Jersey icon: the Six Flags Great Adventure roller coaster. What is it about Newark that inspires you as a writer, and why did you choose to largely set the stories in this collection there?
Annell López: Newark is complex and misunderstood. It’s easily disregarded and overlooked. Yet the city is unique, vibrant, and special. Newark is a sanctuary for some of the most marginalized communities that live in our country. These communities happen to thrive, succeed, and live beautiful and fulfilling lives in Newark. These lives deserve to be read about, and I felt very motivated by the need to contribute to the much-needed conversation and representation.
It’s also the city I call home. I know it really well. I’m partial to books that focus on setting. I wanted to write a book that focused on setting.
Rumpus: I’ll Give You a Reason has many images and references to choking, repeated mentions of impotence, and the need or desire to cry. I was struck by how many of the characters in this collection were seeking a release of some kind. What do these images represent, specifically in the context of grief and the American immigrant experience?
López: These images were the driving force behind many stories. They represent vulnerability, which I think people like me, living at the intersection of many identities, don’t always get to display. We don’t always get to be our most authentic selves. We don’t always get to experience “release.” I wanted to write characters who confront their humanity—all of it, but especially the ugly and visceral parts, and get to have the “release” we all deserve.
Rumpus: Did you decide to represent vulnerability as a physical inability to release, or was this something that revealed itself after writing a few stories?
López: I always wanted vulnerability to present, physically, specifically as the physical inability to release. This was about exploring privilege and exploring how we, Black and brown people, are expected to control our emotions. I think I can speak for many of us when I say that we’ve been raised without the ability, or permission and encouragement, from our loved ones to express our emotions. We’re expected to control our anger. We’re expected to control our sadness. We have to code switch and present in a way that isn’t threatening to others. That can’t be good for our bodies.
Rumpus: When did you know you were working on a collection versus writing individual short stories?
López: I began by writing a couple of stories that were already set in Newark. I remember sharing those stories with a friend. He mentioned there was something compelling and interesting about the way I used setting in those stories. His remark stayed with me. I realized I loved writing about Newark and how the city influenced people. From there, I set out to write more stories with Newark as the backdrop. And, because I have been an avid reader of short stories for most of my adult life, I wanted to write a collection centering on Newark. In a way, I knew this would be a collection right from the start. I wanted to tell the story of a place, and the best way to paint this panoramic view was through a collection. Themes emerged as I began to work on the rest of the stories. The more I thought about Newark and [the working-class neighborhood of] the Ironbound, the more I thought about its people and what I knew kept them up at night. So much of daily life revolves around immigration, the American dream, love, loss, and heartbreak, so I knew the stories had to touch upon those themes.
Rumpus: How did you choose the title for your collection?
López: The title of the collection didn’t occur to me until later in the process when I had already written almost all the stories. Originally, I considered Something Larger, Something Whole, but that story didn’t speak to the themes in the collection. I chose I’ll Give You a Reason because it felt like it encompassed the themes of all the stories, not just the titular story.
Rumpus: Some characters reappear throughout the collection. Desiree, for example, appears in “Thirty Miles West” and again as the protagonist of “What Is Yours.” Did you plan for the collection to be interconnected? What is your process for deciding which characters to revisit and which to dig into deeper?
López: I wrote a draft of “Thirty Miles West” first, then abandoned that draft for a long time. I actually didn’t finish it until a year or so later. However, Desiree stayed with me. I began writing her story because I knew that she and Danny would come to rely on each other in this fictional world, so I felt compelled to work on her own separate narrative. I didn’t set out to have interconnected characters. But it felt right for these two teenagers to exist in the same universe and to lean on each other for support. I kept thinking about how their lives are so sad and how they could use a friend.
Rumpus: Do you find yourself drawn to characters or plot first when embarking on a new idea?
López: My approach varies from time to time. On most occasions, I find myself drawn to a situation: a dynamic or a conversation between two characters. I go from there. There were some stories, however, where I felt drawn to a specific character. “Dark Vader,” where I write about a high school dropout navigating a complicated relationship with her mother while caring for her young sister, is one of those stories where I felt pulled by the main character. I felt this character speak to me; her voice was loud and clear from the start.
So far, I’ve learned to follow my instincts and assume every idea is worth pursuing. Anything that sparks my interest, whether a situation or a character, is worth exploring.
Rumpus: Two stories, “Boxes” and “Jászárokszállás, Hungary, or Newark, New Jersey, or Anywhere, USA,” are both written from a second-person point of view. How do you approach POV and determine which is best for each story?
López: I often play with point of view, although sometimes it’s an arbitrary decision. Sometimes a story comes to me as a voice, and this voice is already in a specific POV. Sometimes I want to show range, so I’ll challenge myself to write from POVs that I’m not inclined to write in for the sake of variety and rhythm. Overall, POV felt like a great tool in making sure the stories felt distinct.
Rumpus: You do such a powerful job at concisely conveying the casual cruelty lobbed at these characters on a daily basis. It never feels gratuitous but rather integral to the experience of oppression at various intersections. How do you balance this starkness against the hope that steadily beats through each of the stories?
López: I did not want to shy away from cruelty and how it presents in our everyday lives. I wanted to render these lives with honesty. Cruelty is a part of life. Overall, I tried to mimic humanity with these stories, which meant I needed to balance despair and happiness. Even during moments of deep sadness and darkness, there’s always a little light, a glimmer of hope, or a sliver of joy. I wanted my stories to reflect this very human reality. I guess, also, to some degree, I was being aspirational. I want to believe there’s always a sliver of hope and joy, no matter how dire the situation.
Rumpus: I appreciated all the New Jersey and New York references in the stories, as well as bits of pop culture found among the pages, from Star Wars to Wu-Tang Clan, to MasterChef, to the band Rush. Are there any musical artists, films, or TV shows that had a particular impact on you while working on this collection? Did you listen to any specific music while writing these stories?
López: Music influences me most, especially when trying to be in a specific frame of mind while writing a story. I listened to many sad songs while writing I’ll Give You a Reason. Ultimately, I tried to listen to what I thought my characters would listen to if they were real people. Some stories take place during the early 2010s, so I listened to Rihanna and Calvin Harris quite a bit. Some stories required me to tap into anger and frustration, so I listened to a lot of grunge, which I already do regularly. While writing stories that dealt with despair and grief, I listened to Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Alice in Chains on repeat. I tapped into my Dominican identity for the last story, “The Fake Wife,” which admittedly feels like a love story to me. So I listened to merengue, bachata, and dembow, followed by some insufferable power ballads about love.
Rumpus: “The Fake Wife” does have a different feel than the rest of the collection, perhaps because it is largely set outside of Jersey, in the Dominican Republic. Can you share how the idea for that story came to you, and how you approached writing it compared to the other stories in the collection?
López: “The Fake Wife” has a different feel, for sure. Initially, “The Fake Wife” was a flash piece. It was about one thousand words. Even though the story worked as a flash piece, something about it kept calling to me. I owed Chris, the story’s main character, a longer and more developed arc. I needed to do his story justice, so to speak. At this point, I had already completed my edits for the collection. But I felt like I needed to expand this world and that the collection as a whole would benefit from a story that leaned more toward hope and happiness.
Truthfully, I also wanted to write a love story. So I reached out to my editor, Margot Atwell, and asked her to let me rewrite “The Fake Wife.” To be honest, I was afraid she would say it wasn’t a good idea because we were almost done with edits at this point. And rewriting the story was risky. Still, I hoped she would trust my vision. Margot has been very supportive and an absolute joy to work with. With that said, I got back to work and rewrote the entire thing. From one thousand words to twelve thousand words. The new draft was then way too long. So I went back to it and kept writing and rewriting until I got it under ten thousand. I loved writing that story because I was in an interesting position overall. It was the first story I had written post-MFA, which meant it wouldn’t be workshopped, unlike most of the stories in the collection. At the same time, the manuscript was already finished and edited, so it felt like I was writing this story for myself and my characters. I was writing in service of the story, and that was invigorating. I felt a great sense of freedom. I felt I could play because if it didn’t work out at the end, there was always the previous version, which was good in its own right. Writing that story taught me a lot about trusting my instincts. I knew it could be better and took a chance to improve it.
Rumpus: What are you currently working on?
López: I’m currently working on a novel that expands on my “Bear Hunting Season” short story. The novel explores Nina’s life before she becomes a widow. Much of the novel explores her relationship with her mother, her husband before he dies, and eventually the people who enter her life as she grieves. I’m really excited to be back in Nina’s world. I think readers will enjoy it too.After I finished writing “Bear Hunting Season,” I began writing another story that featured Nina. I kept imagining this character out in the world, interacting with people and living life. I wrote a third story and then a fourth story. I kept writing and trying to discover who she was before and after widowhood. At that point, I realized that I wanted to keep exploring her arc and that she deserved more time on the page. Perhaps because I wanted to satisfy my curiosity and, at the same time, offer this character the opportunity to recover from a life-shattering loss, I kept expanding her arc in a way that felt too big in scope and demanded a novel. This may sound silly, but I think of her, as well as other characters, as real people. And because I developed this closeness with her, I felt the need to show different sides of her story. In a way, I’m redeeming myself by expanding her world and offering her story a happier ending.
Rumpus: How does the experience of writing a novel compare so far to working on a collection of stories?
López: Writing a novel is hard. What I enjoyed most about writing short stories is that I got to finish a project, and ultimately, finishing a project makes me feel good. I get the satisfaction of knowing I’ve completed a task, and I can move on to the next one. It makes me feel accomplished, as if I can check off an item from my to-do list. Writing a novel feels like the end is nowhere in sight. That makes it daunting. Even if I’m struggling with a short story, I know there’s only so much I can write. The novel requires a different kind of stamina and sustained focus.
Rumpus: How do you decide if a creative idea will develop into a short story or a novel?
López: It’s all about characters. If there’s more to a character beyond a specific situation or circumstance, then that character is worth pursuing as a novel-length project. That happened with Nina. And that could happen again with some other characters in the collection. But right now, Nina’s got all my attention.
Rumpus: What short stories or novels have invoked a strong sense of setting that inspire you?
López: While working on my stories, I returned to Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You. The stories in his collection take place in New Orleans. They represent the city’s beauty and culture with depth, nuance, and honesty. Most recently, I was blown away by Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You and Morgan Talty’s Night of the Living Rez. These linked collections also treat setting with so much nuance and care. Overall, these three collections do an excellent job of establishing a relationship between a person and the place they inhabit.
I also really loved reading Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades and The Girls in Queens by you [Christine Kandic Torres]! I deeply love and appreciate Queens, New York, because so much of this borough reminds me of the Ironbound. These novels were compelling and beautiful and most definitely invoked a strong sense of place as well. I found myself reading works by Amiri Baraka, Junot Díaz, Philip Roth, Marina Carreira, Dimitri Reyes, and Jasmine Mans too.
Rumpus: What do you hope readers will take away from I’ll Give You a Reason?
López: I hope readers walk away with a deeper love and appreciation for short stories! But I also hope they fall in love with Newark . . . a little bit.
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Author photograph by Greg Waltenberg
