Reading While Black

1. How long have you been published?

My first book was released in July of 2006, so at the time I’m writing this, just over a year.

2. How do you feel your heritage has shaped your writing and outlook on the genre in which you write(themes, characters, settings, etc)?

Well, while I’m capable of writing sans Latina characters (I have a couple of manuscripts that aren’t Latina-themed at all) it’s a simple matter of writing what I know. I know of being a first-generation Latina, I know Cuban families, I’m bilingual and grew up in Miami, a city that’s got a unique place in the American cultural landscape. I know about how those things can make me simultaneously “cool” and an outsider. I also know about living places that are quintessentially American and I think having grown up as a child of two cultures, it makes me slightly hyperaware of the cultural flavor of each place I’ve lived, the quirks that give each place its own identity. Because of having lived equally in two cultures, too, I think I’m a bit of a chameleon, able to slip into appropriate personas so I can blend and observe, a gift that comes in extremely handy when writing.

As far as the genres in which I write (young adult & women’s fiction), I think I do what so many other authors do— I try to write what I myself would like to read.

3. While you are obviously proud of your heritage, do you feel the “Latina” moniker can hinder your ability to reach a wider range of readers?

It’s ironic, really— that I embrace Latina so readily these days. I spent much of my early childhood desperately wanting to be “American” in that ABC Afterschool Special sort of way. Part of it, I think, came from having immigrant parents who worked very hard to fit into their new culture. They learned the language as quickly as they could and got equivalency degrees in order to say that yes, they were high school graduates in this country. Yes, they spoke Spanish at home, but they also spoke English equally and insisted that my brother and sister and I speak English first, because we were Americans. They didn’t want anything hindering our ability to get ahead and succeed.

With respect to my career, I could have very easily been an “American” writer as a “Latin American” writer. My married name is Eastern European in origin and I’ve had many a story idea that doesn’t rely on Latin characters or settings so opting to use my maiden name and choosing to be identified as a Latina writer, was entirely by my own volition. When I realized that more and more of my story ideas did employ Latin characters, I thought that perhaps reverting to my maiden name would make more sense. The irony there, of course, is that my name wasn’t quite “Latin enough” for my first publisher, so I was asked to use my middle name rather than my given first name, which is very obviously Spanish, to make it more “authentic.”

To answer your question directly, no— I don’t think it can hinder my ability. I think that today’s readers are extremely savvy and are a lot more open-minded than some of the suits who sit up in marketing can even begin to imagine. Ask any reader what they want out of what they want out of their books and times out of ten, what you’re likely to hear is “a good story.” It’s got to be good, because there are far too many other distractions in our media age to keep someone’s attention riveted on something that ISN’T good. Oddly enough, the comments that I received far more of, were along the lines of, “Wow, I’m in my and I thought I wouldn’t be able to relate to a seventeen year-old musician, but was I wrong!” rather than comments pertaining to the cultural background of my character although of course, I did receive those as well. Actually, come to think of it, the comments I received with respect to my characters’ backgrounds were more along the lines of “I found more in common with your character than I would’ve ever imagined.” I think it’s the same feeling that people got from movies such as Moonstruck or My Big Fat Greek Wedding—this realization that there’s more there that’s similar or relatable, than different.

4. If you’re aware of the debate between Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez and Linda Nieves Powell over the use of the word “Latina” to describe themselves as authors, what is your opinion?

Ignoring the “she said/she said” aspects of the altercation, I think they each have valid points. Nieves-Powell seems to be coming at it from the standpoint of, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…” and she’s certainly not wrong, although I’m not altogether sure she’s completely right. Obviously, based on my answers to the earlier questions, I’m going to feel that ultimately, it’s an author’s individual choice. With respect to Alisa’s side of the argument, I’m certainly not in her position of having been such a juggernaut for a literary movement and while it’s a marvelous thing that she’s been so instrumental in bringing widespread, commercial attention to writers and cultures that have floated beneath the radar for far too long, I can certainly understand a measure of frustration with the media or the publishing industry if they’re attempting to pack her into a box with a neat little label and attempting to prevent her from moving beyond that. I also happen to think that the fact that she organized a gathering for readers and writers of Latina-themed WORKS that was extremely empowering for all those in attendance also says quite a lot about what she thinks and believes. (Full disclosure, I was at Chica Lit and saw first hand just how affected all the attendees were and that even a year later, there are friendships and contacts that have endured, creating a fascinating, vibrant, support network.)

5. What is your reaction when a non-Latino author writes a successful novel featuring Latino characters?

Again, I really hate generalizations. It all comes down to the individual book and author. If it works, it works— if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

6. Have you, at any point in your publishing career, felt marginalized by your heritage?

The closest I’ve come to feeling that way is when editors have asked for what I feel are stereotypes or generalizations which make my teeth itch. One editor asked for an edit on a proposal that required making my character “more Latina” without specifying what, precisely, she felt would make the character such. I had another editor ask that I change a character’s body type, to make the story a bit more “fish out of water” when what I had been going for was body image and self-perception. As you might guess, she wanted me to make the character fuller-figured. I declined.

7. How have you or your books been marketed? Has the content of your books enabled you to market them towards a mainstream audience?

I haven’t had any heavy duty marketing pushes really, although there’s more now that my second book is about to come out. Right now, since I’m published solely in the young adult genre, my marketing efforts have been more towards an age demographic rather than a cultural one, although obviously, there is some of the latter involved. I think your second question is answered somewhat with my answer to question #3. I like to think that I write relatable characters and stories that have a fairly universal appeal.

8. Do you feel that you are required, whether due to external or internal opinions, to write characters sharing your ethnicity?

Not necessarily— more often than not, my lead female is likely to be at least partially Cuban, because that’s the particular culture I’m most familiar with, however, at the same time, I’ve written characters from across the Latin/Hispanic spectrum and characters that were anything but Latin. It’s however the characters present themselves.

9. If there was a section in a bookstore marked for “Hispanic/Latino-American Fiction”, would you want your novels shelved there?

I’m a big fan of cross-shelving. If the story/characters fit within those parameters and given the opportunity, I’d like to be shelved where as many people are liable to find me. I’ve watched the Diana Gabaldon [OUTLANDER Series} situation unfold over the past several years and again, I sympathize with her frustration over what happened to her. When OUTLANDER was first published, no one knew what to do with it, because it was such a mélange— it was a historical, it was a fantasy/time-travel, it was an epic love story— in short, it was a great book that had the potential to appeal to a wide audience. But in the interests of marketing, they opted that since one of the most appealing elements was the love story between Claire and Jamie, they’d put it in romance. She wasn’t thrilled about it, not because she didn’t think highly of romance, but because she thought it had a much broader appeal and thought there might be a large segment of her audience that might be missing out on her books because the wouldn’t be caught dead wandering into the romance section of a bookstore to buy it. A hunch about which she happened to be right— my husband worked in a bookstore for a time and said it was amazing how many men he had come in looking for the book and were shocked to be led to the romance section. Additionally, because it’s not a conventional romance, Diana faced some objection from die-hard romance readers who insisted she wasn’t writing a romance and were upset that her books were shelved in that section because THEY felt they’d been misled.

There are so many things about this industry over which we have little to no control. I think if I were going to be shelved in only one place, I think I’d want it to be in the section that has the broadest appeal— since I think my books are very mainstream, young adult novels that happen to feature Latin characters, I think the best place for them at this point, is in the Teen/Young Adult section.

10. Do you feel “neglected” by the fact that when it comes to race in romance novels, the conversation tends to veer towards black and white?

No, I can’t really say that I do. Perhaps it’s because I tend to think of being Latin as being more a cultural identity than a race— after all, we cover the racial spectrum, from Caucasian, to native islander/tribal, to African, to Asian— the commonality lies in the language and even that can vary wildly.

Visit RITA Award winner Barbara (and Caridad!) at BarbaraFerrer.com or CaridadFerrer.com