12 or 20 (second series) questions with Joy Castro

Joy Castro  is theaward-winning author of the 2023 historical novel  One Brilliant Flame ,set in the 19th-century Cuban anticolonial émigré community in Key West;  Flight Risk , a finalist for a2022 International Thriller Award; the post-Katrina New Orleans literarythrillers  Hell or High Water , which received the Nebraska BookAward, and Nearer Home, which have been published in France byGallimard’s historic Série Noire; the story collection  How Winter Began ;the memoir  The Truth Book ; and the essay collection  Island of Bones , which received the International Latino Book Award. She is alsoeditor of the craft anthology  Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazardsand Rewards of Revealing Family  and the founding series editor ofMachete, a series in innovative literary nonfiction at The Ohio StateUniversity Press. Her work has appeared in venues including Ploughshares, TheBrooklyn Rail, Senses of Cinema, Salon, GulfCoast, Brevity, Afro-Hispanic Review, SenecaReview, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The New YorkTimes Magazine. A former Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University, sheis currently the Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies (LatinxStudies) at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where she directs theInstitute for Ethnic Studies.

1 - How did your firstbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous?How does it feel different?

My first book, TheTruth Book (2005), was a memoir that offered the true account of mychildhood 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 aftermathof that difficult decision. In addition, it explores the complexities of myCuban American heritage and the painful legacy of parental suicide.

Publishing TheTruth Book changed my life because I had previously concealed thoseelements of my past. They seemed too strange and shameful, and I was trying topass as normal in academia, a profession that was and remains normativelywhite and middle-class. To reveal those weird and troubling things about mypast, I had to overcome a great deal of fear—and decades of silence—which tooka great deal of courage, so that book was different for me than all those thathave followed it.

This newestbook, One Brilliant Flame, draws heavily upon my Cuban Americanfamily's background in Key West in the nineteenth century, a sociopoliticalmoment that is little-known today, and being able to recover that history andrestore it to public view has been very exciting and deeply moving to me.

2 - How did you cometo fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

Well, I startedwriting made-up stories when I was extremely young, and my early publishedworks were short stories. That just felt natural to me, as I was absorbed fromearly childhood in the world of storybooks and Bible stories and fairy tales.

It didn't occur to meto write a memoir until I was urged to do so in my 30s by an editor and afellow writer. I actually felt quite shy and reluctant to do so.

3 - How long does ittake to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially comequickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to theirfinal shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

It depends somewhat onthe project, but on the whole, I lay a lot of mental groundwork before I beginto draft, and sometimes much of the work has happened in my mind before I putpen to paper. I write everything longhand, which is immensely helpful inslowing my process down and forcing me to choose among various mental versionsof each sentence as I write them.

I do love to revise,though, so I revise many times for various elements, and I always read everysection many times aloud for rhythm, emphasis, and musicality.

4 - Where does a workof prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end upcombining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" fromthe very beginning?

Well, my short storiesare quite happy to stay short. That's my favorite form. I generally know whenI'm embarking on a book; I can feel the weight and scope of it stretching outahead of me, even if I don't know exactly what will happen.

5 - Are publicreadings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort ofwriter who enjoys doing readings?

I do enjoy it. I'veheard a few awful, flat, droning readings, so I strive to make sure I providesomething intense and worthwhile. It's always top-of-mind that people couldjust as easily be at home enjoying their favorite series or reading a wonderfulbook. Instead, they've invested the time and effort to come out, so I try tofurnish an experience that will make them feel it was worth it.

6 - Do you have anytheoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are youtrying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questionsare?

Yes, very much so. ButI don't like to talk about them.

7 – What do you seethe 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. Towake up.

8 - Do you find theprocess of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I've been very luckyand 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 alwaysstrengthens the work, which is what we're both serving.

9 - What is the bestpiece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

"Nothing can stopyou."

10 - How easy has itbeen for you to move between genres (short stories to the novel to essays tomemoir)? What do you see as the appeal?

Effortless. I don'tsee a particular appeal, exactly; it's just what happens.

11 - What kind ofwriting routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typicalday (for you) begin?

I don't. A typical daybegins 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 writinggets 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 mydayjob or due to political horrors in the larger world, so I feel drained andsad and despairing, but that's not specific to writing. When that happens, Ijust try to rest and be gentle with myself and remember to do a few extrathings I enjoy.

I do like JuliaCameron's notion of the artist's date very much.

13 - What fragrancereminds you of home?

The salty sea.

14 - David W. McFaddenonce said that books come from books, but are there any other forms thatinfluence 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 gothrough phases of obsession with various artists: Artemisia Gentileschi,Remedios Varo, Käthe Kollwitz. Film, too, especially film noir: I love itssleek aesthetic, and hardboiled narration and dialogue crack me up.

15 - What otherwriters or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside ofyour 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 youlike to do that you haven't yet done?

Visit Churchill,Manitoba to see the Northern Lights, polar bears, and Beluga whales. Not duringthe same season, apparently, though.

17 - If you could pickany other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do youthink you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I would like to havemarried a forest ranger and been his little housewife up in a tower above thetrees. (So I could write, mainly.) I'm not a good cook or cleaner, so heprobably would have been disappointed.

I do like teaching, soI'm glad I stumbled into that. It's an excellent dayjob. I made a very poorwaitress—absent-minded, not really interested in the whole process.

18 - What made youwrite, as opposed to doing something else?

I always wrote. Idon't know the name of the thing inside that made me do so. I always just lovedwriting; it always felt natural and simple and necessary.

19 - What was the lastgreat book you read? What was the last great film?

Great is a tricky word. I genuinely loved the newtranslation of Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes, and Ivery much enjoyed the surprise of the gentleness of the stories in BananaYoshimoto's Dead-End Memories. In film, I'm still so moved andimpressed by No Intenso Agora (In the Intense Now).

20 - What are youcurrently working on?

My next book of shortstories and a suspense novel set outside Berlin.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;