FRIDAY, AUGUST 23rd, 2019
On a beautiful evening in Washington Heights, Angela Abreu and I met outside of Café 181 to talk about the Dominican Writers Association, Abreu’s collaboration with Word Up Community Bookshop to help launch Uptown Reads, in which my novel, Dominicana, was selected as their inaugural pick. We left our eleven-year-old sons playing Minecraft while we discussed the challenges of being a person of color in publishing, and also what we are each trying to do to change both the system and our communities.
Angie Cruz: Why don’t we start with you telling me how and why you started Dominican Writers?
Angela Abreu: I founded the organization in 2015. I used to have a spoken word organization that ran Uptown where I curated featured performers at venues like Apt 78 and Word Up Bookshop. During the course of me running the organization, I met a lot of really great Dominican writers who were writing screenplays or were poets or were working on novels. One of the artists we featured at Word Up was actually Elizabeth Acevedo. And I said to myself —why does no one know these people? I didn’t think it was fair that everyone else, every Latinx writer that you looked up—would be Puerto Rican or Cuban, but no one was talking about us, Dominicans, as writers. It was important to me that people get to know these amazing Dominican writers, like Elizabeth who I discovered on YouTube, Googling, you know, searching for Dominican writers and one of her videos came up.
AC: Were you also writing at the time?
AA: Yes. I have a poetry book that I self-published.
AC: What’s the name of the book?
AA: It’s called, I Have No Room for the Broken, and is a collection of poems about heartbreak and moving on and what not. I self-published that in 2016.
AC: Who were some of the first Dominican writers that influenced you as a writer?
AA: You were one of them. (Laughter) When I was in college I took a creative writing workshop...
AC: What college did you go to?
AA: I went to John Jay, where I was a forensic psychology student. During my last semester, I had to take an elective for one credit that I was missing, and took a creative writing class. It had never occurred to me to take one in my four years in college. In that class something clicked, and I thought I don’t know anybody writing stories like mine. About Dominicans and our culture. So, I researched and found you, Julia Alvarez and Junot Diaz. I read all the books and I was like, “Oh my god!” Especially when I read your book, Soledad, I was living on 164th street, between Edgecombe and Amsterdam. I could literally imagine Soledad out on the corner in front of the church and coming home. I felt so close to her, especially because we had similar relationships with our mothers. When I read Julia Alvarez’s books, it was the same thing, and then with Junot, he is a little more americanized and you could see it when he would mention science fiction and Star Wars and I was like “ok, these are a handful of writers; there’s got to be more.”
AC: What were some of the first things you did with the organization?
AA: Before I even thought about creating an organization, my first post on Instagram was “tag a Dominican writer.” I wanted to know who was out there. The plan was to give visibility to writers and then be like, “go read this person’s work.” Then with time, it became bigger than I could imagine. Now it includes writers’ workshops, panel discussions, and educating emerging writers about how to get published traditionally or teaching them how to self-publish.
AC: So, you also publish writers? Why did you choose to do that?
AA: We wanted to offer services to writers who didn’t want to self-publish because it’s a lot of work and as you know the process itself of getting a publisher, a literary agent is so difficult. So, what we are doing is not just publishing writers but planning their book events, booking them on podcasts, and other places.
AC: So, it’s like a full publicity and publishing service?
AA: Yes, exactly.
AC: Do writers have to pay?
AA: No, I apply for grants to fund the services we provide to writers. We recently became an official a 501c.
AC: What books have you published so far?
AA: The first book we published was Para Cenar Habra Nostalgia, a collection of poetry by Fior Plasencia about her experience immigrating to the U.S. like getting on the train for the first time, going to the consulado, feeling homesick. She’s bilingual, going back and forth between two languages. It’s so wonderful. Fior is a great poet.
AC: You choose the books?
AA: Yes. The second book we published was Conversacion con un Prostituto by Rigo Diaz. And then this year, we published another poetry book, La Casas de las Maletas by Roxana Calderon. We also published Kianny Antigua's book, 10 Dominicanas de Letras: Homenaje & Antologia. She really wanted us to help her get that out.
AC: What is the most challenging thing about doing this work?
AA: The most challenging thing? Time. Finding time to do so much because I head everything. Even though I might tell my team what I need done, it still comes from me. Currently, we’re moving our website and redesigning it. Planning events. We are working on an anthology where 90 writers submitted, and we have two editors. So, there’s a lot of work! Collecting all the information from the writers, editing the works. I have to stay on top of that. And as you know, Malcriada & Other Stories is coming out by end of September so we are also giving Lorraine Avila’s book attention. I also write all the grants. It’s a lot to find the time outside of having a child and working 9-5.
AC: Do you feel people are receptive? Once the book is out? Have you found support?
AA: I think that Dominican Writers has developed enough connections to garner the support we need for our Authors. It definitely helps if the person is known. Lorraine, for example, has a big following on social media and they have been very supportive of her book. They have pre-ordered it. La Guardia Community college bought 100 copies of the book because they are teaching it this upcoming semester, they are also booking her for Hispanic Heritage Month. I told Lorraine, "be ready for this, emotionally.” I remember when I published my book it wasn't until it came out that I was like, “Oh my god now everyone is gonna talk about this and my mom is going to have questions!” You gotta prepare yourself for everything that comes with it, the praises, the criticism. When I launched my book, I made it into a theatrical performance because I hate being front and center.
AC: In a culture where many people are ready to take credit for work they are not even doing, you are the opposite. You prefer to work quietly behind the scenes. Why is that?
AA. In the past with my spoken word collective, the majority of people didn’t know that I was the one organizing everything. At the end of the day, it's not about me. It's about the writers. If you email us or if you come to our workshop, or events, you know I’m the one running it because now I introduce myself to folks. Otherwise, I don’t like putting my face out there. But, if I happen to be in a picture, I happen to be in a picture. What I care about is the work getting done.
AC: Do you hope to one day support yourself doing this work?
AA: Recently, I sat down with a consultant because there’s so many things I want to do with the organization, and she said to me, “one day this could take care of you.” I was like, “What? I plan to retire from my job.” I never planned to make money from Dominican Writers, it never even crossed my mind. My vision is for Dominican Writers to become the organization that all Dominican writers would want to come to. That we would be the bridge between them, the Dominican community and publishing platforms.
AC: Well, there’s approx. 650,000 Dominicans in NYC. That’s a huge market. And even a larger Latinx community. It's great how for your conference and events you reiterate that it's for all writers. There is an openness.
AA: Definitely, we are out there, our conference yielded approx. 300 people in attendance and that was overwhelming for me. I was finally able to make my point, that we are out here doing the work, and our stories matter. It’s also about changing the culture of reading. To develop more readers. We try to do something different with every event. For example, Mary Ely Peña-Gratereaux wrote a book, Narrativas en el Tiempo de Bachata. So, we hosted a bachata night to debut her book, and we had performers come in and share their bachata themed poems. It was a full house, and Mary Ely loved it. She was like “Oh my god, toda la juventud!” She’s an elderly lady. She was happy to have a new audience exposed to her work. I did it at my cousin’s restaurant at Pop and Pour and we filled up the place. It was just a wonderful event.
AC: What is the most surprising thing that’s happened in your journey as an organizer?
AA: I will tell you that the most surprising thing for me was sitting in the audience at the PEN America event with Julia Alvarez and Elizabeth Acevedo and hear Elizabeth bring us up in conversation like 5 times. It was unexpected, I didn’t ask her to do that. I can say it’s been amazing witnessing Elizabeth’s success; our community has come through to support her and I’m happy for the relationship we have with her. I’ve supported Elizabeth since she was a slam poet. So many years later to have her sit in conversation with Julia Alvarez in front of PEN America, it meant everything to me.
AC: She’s such a hard worker and is one of the most generous literary citizens I know.
AA. She introduced me to Julia Alvarez and suggested we work together, that was a lot for me that night. It would be a dream to one day work with Julia Alvarez. That event changed a lot of things for us in a great way, PEN America reaches out to include us in events and are super supportive of what we need. Great things are coming.
AC: But they should invite you.
AA: Well, I see PEN America as such a HUGE organization and we are just so small in comparison.
AC. Your presence is an asset to PEN because you have established a large following of Latinx writers, and this is a great resource for literary organizations that want to develop audiences of color. You are a leading literary organizer in our community who has conceived a vision and built an organization to fill an obvious need and hole for Dominican Writers and writers of color in general.
One of your events this year, is my launch party for Dominicana, but also the inauguration of @wordups Uptown Reads, where numerous organizations will be reading the novel toward a culminating event in November. Why do you think Dominicana was a good choice for the community and why should people read the book?
AA: When I heard you were publishing a third novel I remember asking Veronica at Word Up all these questions about it, the title, when was it coming out and how could I get in touch with you and your team because the book needed to come home, to Washington Heights. I am intentional about sharing the literary arts with our Dominican community, of sharing the works of authors such as yourself so that people can not only see themselves reflected in the stories we write but also open their minds to the possibility that maybe they too can write. Ana’s story in Dominicana is personal to many Dominicans, its personal to my mother, and my aunts, because they lived very similar experiences. Not only should Dominicans read it, but also those who are unfamiliar with the sacrifices immigrants make to come to this country and sustain their families back home. In this political climate, where Trump is detaining undocumented immigrants and separating families, and deporting people by the loads, it’s even more important that we share our stories. It's not easy for us to leave all we know, to leave our family, and try our luck in a country where we don't speak the language, don't know anyone. Ana tries her luck married to a man who mistreats her, and she sucks it up because she feels that she needs to accomplish what she set out to do, to help her family come to the U.S. despite how she may feel about her marriage. It is a story we as immigrant women are too familiar with.
AC: Thank you for your work and vision.
Since this interview, Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria & Dominican Writers Association celebrated the release of Dominicana with author Angie Cruz at Alianza Dominicana Cultural Center, during the inauguration of UPTOWN READS, a neighborhood-wide program that celebrates great literature and the community-wide reflection that can come of a shared reading experience. The evening yielded approximately 200 attendees, among them was Orange is the New Black, actress Laura Gomez, who led the Q&A with Angie Cruz, and actress Coral Peña, the voice of Ana in the audio book. The Washington Heights community, birthplace of Cruz, welcomed her back home with open arms and embraced the publication of Dominicana.
To view images of the book release click here.
Word Up Facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/pg/WordUpBooks/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2600932016604058&ref=page_internal
Dominican Writers Events Gallery
https://www.dominicanwriters.com/events-gallery
For more information on how to join UPTOWNREADS with Reading & Discussing Dominicana visit: https://www.wordupbooks.com/uptownreads
For more info about Dominican Writers visit www.dominicanwriters.com.
