Celia Lisset Alvarez interview

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

A little introduction:

Celia Lisset Alvarez holds an MFA in creative writing from the university of Miami. She has published two chapbooks of poetry, the award-winning Shapeshifting (Spire Press 2005) and The Stones (Finishing Line Press 2006), and two full-length collections, Multiverses (Finishing Line Press 2021) and Bodies & Words (Assure Press 2022). She lives and teaches in Miami, Florida. 

When did your love of books begin?

My parents were both bookish and introduced me to the love of books before I could even read. I was a weird little kid, and books were my refuge and my education. 

When did you start to have the wish to become an author?

I think as early as third grade, when my English teacher asked us to write a short play. She was very impressed by mine, and I thought it had been so easy to write! I started writing poems around ten. I made the serious decision to give it a go when I chose to major in English at college. I figured I could always teach if the writing didn’t work out. 

How have you found the process for becoming an author?

I’m not an author. I find that so pretentious. I write. Sometimes I get published. It’s hard to write when it makes no money and hardly anybody reads, especially literary poetry. An MFA is a joke, at best a lucky strike for someone who manages to get something published quickly and successfully enough after graduation to land an academic job. My growth as a writer has been stunted since grad school by the need to work, which leaves me little time for reading, writing, and submitting, the three cornerstones of a writer’s life. In other words, the process has been painstaking and wrought with frustration. 

What would you say to those wanting to become an author?

Are you serious? Do you love language, or do you just want to be admired? Can you write? Can you read critically? What do you know about the craft and business of writing? How will you support yourself economically? If you can answer all these questions truthfully, you might just have it in you. 

Tell us about your book/books:

Shapeshifting and The Stones are very similar. In fact, they have a few poems in common. Shapeshifting is more of a coming-of-age collection; The Stones explores my Latina identity a little more. Multiverses is about death, particularly the death of my son, whom I lost at just twenty-six days old. It is the most structurally complex book I’ve ever written, with at least four distinct narrative threads presented simultaneously. Bodies & Words is based on a quotation of Joyce Carol Oates: “In love there are two things: bodies and words.” It is an exploration of male-female relationships and the way we have codified them to the degree that gender has become a performance. 

What do you love about the writing/reading community?

They’re weird and totally passionate. No one reads offhandedly. And they’re smart. They tend not to live solely to consume and be consumed. They can see the big picture, the possibilities. They are thinkers, dwellers. They exceed the boundaries of our dull existence on this world. 

If you could say anything to your readers what would it be?

Do I have readers? That’s an odd concept. To readers in general I would say a few things. Give poetry a chance. Don’t waste your time reading garbage. Find other readers. Circle the wagons. 

Where can people connect with you?

I try to post any news on the usual social platforms, but it all comes together on my website, celialissetalvarez.com.