I had retired the literary Would You Rather interview series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!
Joining me today is
Claudia Meléndez Salinas. Claudia is an Indigenous Mexican Chicana born in
Puebla, Mexico. Her writing has been published in La Jornada, Latina Magazine,
and other publications in the United States and Mexico. In 2017 she co-founded
Voices of Monterey Bay, www.vomb.org, a bilingual internet magazine for California's central
coast. Her poems have been published in Journal X, LatinoLiteratures, and her
poem “Transitioning” was the recipient of the 2022 Red Wheelbarrow poetry
award. Her first book, A Fighting Chance, was published by Arte Público Press
in 2015. “A Fighting Chance” is a young adult novel that fictionalizes real
events that took place in the mid 2000 in Salinas, Calif., when the city was
struggling with funding and was trying to reduce services for youth.
Why do you write?
Two reasons: writing is
like breathing for me, a biological necessity. I have to write at least a
sentence a day in order to feel whole. It is how I achieve clarity and how I
process feelings, ideas, how I resolve conflicts in my head. It’s like a daily emotional
cleanse.
I also write because I
want to increase Latino representation in the written word. This country needs
to have more writers who come from a Latina background, who see the world from
our point of view and express their views about how the world works from our
perspective. It’s a grain of sand on a vast shore, but it’s MY grain. 😀
If you met your characters in real life, what would you say to them?
I’m very fond of Miguel Ángel, the main
character in “A Fighting Chance.” I see him as I would a son, so everything I
want to tell him, I do it through Ita, his ghost great-grandmother. She tells
him not to be a knucklehead, not to get into fights, not to fall for a life on
the streets. I’d tell him the exact same things, plus that he's loved and the
universe will take care of him.
Would you and your main character(s) get along?
I would definitely get along with Ita. I would love to listen to
her stories about the Mexican Revolution. My younger self would have loved to
share a cigarette with her, but I don’t smoke anymore.
If you could cast your characters in a movie, which actors would play them and why?
Gael García Bernal is
getting a bit old to play Miguel Ángel, but he would have been definitely a
good one when he was 17. When I wrote “A Fighting Chance,” Miguel Ángel looked
like Gael in my head. Or Tenoch Huerta. Maybe Michael Cimino or Marcel Ruiz. He
has to be a young, athletic actor, since Miguel Ángel is a boxer. For
Britney, Anya Taylor-Joy or Millie Bobby Brown, they’re both good looking
girls, just like I imagine Britney to be.
If you could spend the day with another author, who would you choose and why?
Trevor Noah. His book
“Born a Crime” is brilliant, and his shows are great. He strikes me as the type
of person who just makes witty commentaries about life and how the world works
at the drop of a hat, so spending the day with him would be an education.
What are some of your favorite books and/or authors?
Louise Penny and all the books in the Inspector Gamache series are
great. Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” is a masterpiece. Tlacaelel: The Aztec among Aztecs by Antonio Velazco Piña
changed my life. I also love Elena Poniatowska. So many books, so little time!
What is your favorite book from childhood?
“The Sword in the Stone”, the Disney version. I had my mom buy
that from me when I was like 4, and had her read it to me over and over and
over. Then I learned to read and read it like a million times. I loved Merlin
and his power to transform Arthur into a fish and a squirrel. Archimedes is a
great character as well. That book really inspired me to become a lifelong book
lover.
What are you currently reading?
Just
finished reading Tenoch Huerta’s “Brown Pride” and “Poet Warrior: a Memoir” by
Joy Harjo. I have a stack of six books to choose the next one from that include
“On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Voung and Viola Davis’ “Finding Me.”
I’ll choose before going to be tonight. Lol.
Are you a book hoarder or a book unhauler?
Definitely a hoarder.
When it comes time to make room for more books, I just put them in boxes in
storage instead of giving them away. I just fall in love with them and I can’t
let them go.
What’s the single best line you’ve ever read?
“Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.” It’s the first
line of “Ahab's Wife, or The
Star-Gazer” by Sena Jeter Naslund. That line has haunted me for
years, it packs so much in it. It’s perfect. The entire book is great.
Seventeen-year-old Miguel Angel spends every minute after school
at the Packing Shed, working out with the Alisal Boxing Club. He dreams of
becoming a champion so he can get his mother and five siblings out of their
cramped one-bedroom apartment in one of Salinas’ poorest barrios.
But
suddenly his life gets more complicated. The city is threatening to take the
Packing Shed away from Coach, and without a place to train he won’t be able to
avoid the gangbangers in his neighborhood. His childhood friend, Beto, has
succumbed to the wiles of easy money and expensive cars, and Miguel Angel
wonders if he’ll be able to resist. Meanwhile, beautiful blonde Britney from
Pebble Beach has entered his life, and Miguel Angel has never felt this way
before. She too feels an overwhelming attraction, and she’s willing to defy her
hard-nosed father, who expects her to date someone from their social background
of exclusive country clubs and Ivy League schools.
When
Beto turns to him for help, Miguel Angel is torn between his commitment to
friends and Coach’s warnings about gang life. With gang violence getting closer
and closer, he and Britney are suddenly faced with the consequences of
unprotected sex. Can their love for each other survive all of the problems
swirling around them?
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