Interviews

“[P]oetry is not doing what it does in isolation. I don’t expect my poems to magically accomplish anything. I see my poems as part of a movement: That movement is political. It is artistic. It transcends poetry. It transcends politics.…

I like stories because you can take a big swing, you can do anything you can;, you can be experimental. If it doesn’t work out, it really doesn’t matter. When you work in the long form, if you take a…

“I was always, across these various modes of expression, chasing or trying to harness this underlying current of poetry—that thing in paintings or buildings or concertos or in (some) really good prose that makes me, even if temporarily, wholeheartedly invested…

“It’s not a book in which plot is the central driver. What I was most interested in is how falling in love spurs James into increasing levels of hope or longing, or agony in some cases. It was a very…

I wanted to write something inspired by the witchcraft folklore I learned about from my family growing up back in Mexico. But I also lived in Massachusetts for a little while and wanted something related to that locale, which is…

“Many of us go through similar experiences, where the foundations of our lives and family dynamics collapse. These situations force us to come face to face with the instability of self-narratives, family structures, and personal identities. I’m enormously curious about…

“One of the reasons that I’ve allowed my book to exist in so many genre containers is because I’ve often felt like my own life is simultaneously a coming-of-age story, along with a surreal fabulist story, along with a medical…

“I was setting flame to not so much the particulars of life, but just the appearance of it and the rules that I was supposed to live by. Staying quiet about what happened to coming out of that lane to…

“The real magic of a piece comes out when you let a work become what it needs to become, and when you let go of original intent. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately: a lot of short stories,…

“Once I had a draft, I could step back and some of what I do love in the writing process—revision and craft, and rewriting, rewriting, rewriting—could come and help me. Writing this book felt like using guerrilla tactics to get…

“Usually, I try to make things as brief as I can (my model is one of those wind-up toys and I wind it up and drop it on the floor and it races right under the couch. The end). But…

“I think that people are actually really good at telling their stories when they’re given the power to tell it from their perspective without forcing them into a box. I wanted to create an open space. It led down some…