What inspired you to become an author?
I wrote a poem for a 7th grade project about my experience with a childhood brain tumor. My mom’s side of the family has writers, so maybe that’s why it clicked.
Do you have a specific writing style?
I would say I’m more of a pantser. I love spontaneously adding details and connections that make the characters and text richer.
Do you write in different genres?
Yes, poetry [4 books] and literary fiction.
If yes which is your favorite genre to write?
poetry
How did you come up with the title for your latest book?
Do you title the book first or wait until after it’s complete?
The title came first.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Just the randomness of life and how fast it can change…disability is not something to fear…if you are disabled, you will eventually become whole just as you are..It helps to have faith.
Is the book, characters, or any scenes based on a true life experience, someone you know, or events in your own life?
December 20th–when Rosa has her procedure–was the day of my first brain surgery.
Of all the characters you’ve ever written, who is your favorite and why?
Doc Star. She is a feisty black socialite from Savannah, Georgia, who uses a wheelchair. She’s a fashionista and keeps in shape by boxing.
What books/authors have influenced your life?
David Foster Wallace, Murikami, Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
From my new book of poetry, Disablé:
Interstellar
It hurts to look in the mirror
Survive the Hawking Radiation,
Dip below the Event Horizon
Into a wormhole that
Passes celestial palaces and
Planets like irises,
Through crystallized frost, the expanding darkness,
And arrive at a dimension that harnesses magic.
After a decade of being,
Two constants broke with the dawn:
The invisible thing and
Time—both undefined.
For twenty-five years, a quarter of a century,
No hand held mine,
No lips touched mine,
No ethereal spell kept us intertwined.
I speak not of affection from friends and family,
But of the pillar that sustains societies.
The tender clay that every soul deserves.
In these infinite-scroll days,
With tribal huts, digital lust,
Self-monitoring sunset sluts,
And filters generating melancholy ruts—
I have rolled naked for all to see,
For all to swipe pass. So, what could it be?
Why when the hot bots eye me
Must they see an easy mark? Why
Must the endorphin rush of
New calligraphy
Fade like fire?
Perhaps my texts did not strike
To the superstring’s like.
Perhaps they are forever in a superposition,
Stretching my mind’s matter.
Tectonic plates once pushed pressure onto the other
But how much force led to an answer?
The gaul of me to have romantic desires!
Am I deranged?
Is there such a thing as blame?
Nymphs actions are difficult to convict
When I would have helmed the same sleeping ship—
If the Sun penetrated me the same way as they,
If hikes by rocky waterfalls filled my day.
These ice-olating, unaware rains
Are my eternal fountain of pain.
I’m tired of being Her good deed for the day.
And what am I to think–
Of these profiles with height requirements
And pleas for openmindedness–
If I am to ever own a home or
Earn an income after
Being sequestered like a leper in a slum?
How should I proceed? Is my pride in need?
Or is it as wide as the horizon?
Should I forget the stillness in my bedroom,
How the chromatic light on the lamppost loomed
Where I once played with ghosts under the moon?
Alas, it would have been easy
To twixt my mature soul with a ripe one
Like I had done
In my dreams—
No need to scheme,
Be seen on the scene, waste time
Fumbling words, lie like fiends, play
The game in an endless stream.
A tyrant has ruled my days,
And if this is the fate
I am doomed to face
I will abandon my sojourn
To be more free, but how free?
I would possess
The anchor of time, but would I hear
The music of wind chimes?
Now, I am a nebula’s shepherd
Waiting to be discovered.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
I am terrible with plot. I’m more focused on smaller, character moments.
Who designed the cover of your latest book?
Spanish author and artist Sofia Sanz
Do you have any advice for other writers?
Take courses, learn the methods, then don’t listen to any advice. And don’t TRY to write.
Do you have a song or playlist (book soundtrack) that you think represents this book?
I Am Not A Robot by Marina
What would your readers be surprised to learn about you?
I used to be really into rap music.
When you’re not writing what do you do? Do you have any hobbies or guilty pleasures?
I am a huge cinephile. Sports have always ben in my family. Basketball, football, soccer, volleyball, track. And I like poker.
Excerpt: Day 1
When I first used my hoverchair, nobody told me about the unexpectedness. I didn’t know I’d be the only young woman on Titan using one. When I’d run my last Convalor, climb my last staircase to a house. Traverse a ravine’s rocks. I wish I could have readied myself for things like my last walk with my dad along the lakeshore, but life doesn’t always give us time to prepare.
Dark brown clouds slit the dusky morning sky. I lay in bed reading Village Sisters on my tabicus, trying to learn what life would be like for me in a hoverchair. The Village Sisters was written on Earth about the bond between an African-Japanese beauty queen and her best friend, who broke her spine in a tsunami.
An empty frame hung in front of my bed next to the window. I didn’t want to see me standing with my friends at Lucky’s Tavern. The obligatory smiles and people I barely knew now felt like a past life. The picture was only a year old, but still.
I always kept sunflowers on the table beside my bed to brighten my mood. Next to the sunflowers, my elegant ballerina motivated me to strive for grace and good posture. The best thing I ever got from the Keller Aviary was a fluffy, stuffed butterfly that I named Ms. Monarch and rested on my bed. Like many times since the incident, I embraced her and squeezed tight.
Then, just before the announcement, a tingling shot down my right arm. Was I numb from squeezing Ms. Monarch too hard? Was it a side effect of the surgery? It felt like hot wax on my skin–but somehow empowering?
My body jerked upright. My arm swung like a directional arrow. I had no control of it.
My hand and arm lined up with a Faberge egg on my dresser. It was a family heirloom passed down to my dad’s disabled relative. This, in part, is why I believe our lives are echoes of our ancestors. We’re the same stars, just moving through different galaxies.
The heirloom navigated our solar system aboard the U.S.S. Freedom. The maroon and gold Faberge egg rattled out of its four pure white supports, fell to the floor, and shattered.
I thought someone might’ve bumped into my dresser the night before. Maybe they nudged it off its axis, and that’s why it toppled over this morning.
The pneumonia rains started, and I was content watching them splatter the bubble and cascade down, but we all know what happens now.
The Urgent News banner appeared on my tabicus. I turned the volume up. Remember that image? The mayor drooped like a geranium.
“Fellow citizens, I come to you today with the heaviest of hearts. I sincerely hope that every individual heed this news with the understanding that the best course of action for every life was attempted.” Her shoulders rose and fell like the Magic Islands. “Several weeks ago, a volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io dispelled lava that somehow escaped its gravitational pull and froze, hurtling it into space. This is the meteor I’m sure many of you have heard about on the news. The meteor is one point-six kilometers in diameter and travels at a speed of thirty-six kilometers per second. I regret to inform you that it is headed directly for Titan, and it’s too late to stop it.
“The meteor will make an impact with Titan in six days and destroy everything, including our beloved–” I felt so bad for her when her voice cracked, and she began to tear up. “Civigem.”
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