(Almost) 10 Questions for Nicole Gonzalez
- By By Edward Clifford
Maggie fans her hand out on the windowpane. She brings her mouth close to the glass and huffs hot breath, leaving behind the web of her handprint ringed by fog. "Mom," she says peering through the stencil, "I think there's someone outside."
Maggie's mother, Magalys, shoves her feet into slippers, grabs her flashlight, and shoulders the back door one, two, three times before it gives. If the pound and scrape of wood startles the man in her backyard, Maggie can't tell from the window.
— from "Mass of the Mute," Volume 61, Issue 2 (Summer 2020)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
There weren’t a lot of books in my house when I was young, but I did watch a lot of TV. The first story structure I ever internalized was that of the Sailor Moon episode—a sort of “monster of the week” structure. I was about four years old, so I couldn’t write yet, but the first stories I created were based on that structure. I would force an adult, usually my grandmother, to sit and listen to stories I made up on the spot. They were always mashups of Sailor Moon episodes, including the five-minute transformation scenes, during which I would flail and hum to indicate my outfit change. My grandmother doesn’t speak English, but she graciously pretended to understand my ramblings about “moon prism power” and let me prattle on for as long as I wanted.
As soon as I could write full sentences, I fictionalized my favorite episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Tales from the Crypt. I was very sensitive to horror stories, but I was drawn to them at the same time. I thought that if I overexposed myself to scary stories by writing them down, I’d desensitize myself to their power and be able to consume them without having nightmares. It didn’t work.
What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
I’m awestruck by the fiction of Karen Russell and Sofia Samatar. They both tweak the world we know slightly and plop the reader right in the middle of it. I love it when a writer has fun and leans into their strengths. That’s what I aspire to, to be excited by some aspect of whatever I’m working on, whether it’s the structure, the setting, or the sentences themselves.
I’m also indebted to Jennine Capó Crucet, who writes so beautifully about my hometown. Her novel Make Your Home Among Strangers is one of those earth-shaking books for me. After the narrator, Lizet, leaves Hialeah for undergrad, it’s almost as if she can never truly return home. I remember where I was when I was reading it. I remember putting it down every ten pages or so to process what I’d just read. I pull that novel down from my favorites shelf once in a while and read a random passage and remind myself that my lived experience is worth writing about, imposter syndrome be damned.
What did you want to be when you were young?
I wanted to be a stand-up comedian for a long time. I was in high school, and I didn’t think it was actually possible to make money off of art, but that was my dream job. I carried a tiny notebook around to write jokes in and practiced my set in the bathroom mirror.
What inspired you to write this piece?
My grandmother has a ceiba tree in her backyard. Several years ago, there was a period of a few months when, every few days, she’d see a stranger standing in the alley behind her yard staring at the tree. She finally spoke to one of the visitors, and he explained the significance of the tree in Santería. Despite that fact that she has friends and family who practice Santería, she had never heard of the ceiba. I loved that she planted the tree simply because she was drawn to it, and later learned about its history and religious significance.
As for Maggie, I remember being her age and knowing on some level that I was bisexual, even though I didn’t have the language to express it. I remember having crushes on girls and feeling this guilt that I couldn’t place. Before anyone ever explicitly told me that liking other girls wasn’t okay, I learned to hide that part of me because so many subtle signals were registering unconsciously for me. I learned that broadcasting my crushes on boys was acceptable, but I dismissed my feelings for people of other genders as nonromantic, or “friend crushes,” which was a load of nonsense. For “Mass of the Mute” I asked myself, “Where does this denial start?” and sort of explored that question through Maggie.
Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
All of the fiction I’ve written so far takes place in South Florida, mostly in my hometown Hialeah. It’s the place I grew up in, and since I often write about childhood and adolescence, it’s often the setting of my stories. The natural spaces in Florida are so beautiful, too. I love the colorful flora and fauna that are able to survive and evolve in that climate. Then there’s the places where the city and the primordial collide. An alligator—this not-so-distant relative of dinosaurs—will waddle through a Taco Bell parking lot. The other places I’ve lived just don’t have that type of range.
Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
Videogame soundtracks are very helpful. They’re usually completely instrumental, which I need when I’m writing. I can’t listen to words when I’m writing words. Videogame soundtracks are also designed to create a specific atmosphere without being overbearing. Depending on the tenor of what I’m working on, I’ll reach for a different soundtrack. Some of my favorite soundtracks are for the games Hollow Knight, Hyper Light Drifter, and Journey.
If you could work in another art form what would it be?
I wish I could draw so I could work in animation. Some of the greatest stories ever told are cartoons. I’d love to explore the things cartoons can do things with storytelling that prose can’t. The battles in Avatar: the Last Airbender, for example. I could watch the showdown between Zuko and Azula a thousand times and it wouldn’t get old. But for some reason, when I encounter descriptions of combat in prose, I lose interest.
Cartoons also have the power to shape a generation. Most people around my age who grew up in the United States, for example, have SpongeBob as a kind of shared language. I think that’s beautiful.
What are you working on currently?
I’m currently working on a horror novel set in the Everglades.
What are you reading right now?
I start my days by reading poetry. Right now, I’m reading Kaveh Akbar’s Calling a Wolf a Wolf. I go through poetry collections very slowly because I usually read each poem a few times. I’m also reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents. I started quarantine with Parable of the Sower, and I could only go so long before diving back into Olamina’s journals.
NICOLE GONZALEZ is a Cuban-American writer from Hialeah, Florida. She writes about childhood, loneliness, and the natural world. She received her MFA in fiction from the University of Oregon. Her work has appeared in Hobart.
