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An interview with Beatriz Rivera - Interview
MELUS, Summer, 2003 by Frederick Luis Aldama
FLA: When you write, do you think of yourself as a Latina fiction writer?
BR: Yes. Yes. I don't mind the word "Latina," I don't mind the word "Hispanic," because a lot of people I was reading with in Miami were Cuban, they really minded. They would say, "If they ask me if I'm Hispanic, I cross that out and I say I'm Cuban." No, I really don't mind. I don't mind calling myself Latina or Hispanic. Maybe somebody who feels they're Mayan or Aztec doesn't want to be called Hispanic or Latino. And there's that other side, the marketing side of it.
FLA: What would you advise to the new generation of authors in terms of writing fiction?
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BR: Well, first of all, to keep on writing. To start and to keep writing because I think there are a lot of people who want to get into writing and who don't write very much. You have to write a lot--and for many years: "Not a day without a line," whether or not you have genius. Also I think what's important about writing is the discouragements. Try not to get discouraged. It happens. It's a very hard route. There's nothing sure in it. So it's tiring. You get disheartened. I think that's the worst part, becoming disheartened and discouraged, but you just have to keep going.
Selected Bibliography
1. Works by Beatriz Rivera
African Passions and Other Stories. Houston: Arte Publico P, 1995.
"Chromatic scales" (poem). The Americas Review 24.1-2 (1997): 158-60.
"Confidentials" (poem). The Americas Review 24.1-2 (1997): 157.
"Did he throw her out the window?" (poem). The Americas Review 24.1-2 (1997): 160-62.
Midnight Sandwiches at the Mariposa Express. Houston: Arte Publico P, 1997.
Playing in Light. Houston: Arte Publico P, 2000.
"Shango's rest" (story). The Americas Review 24.1-2 (1997): 11.
"Virtual boy" (poem). The Americas Review 24.1-2 (1997): 155-57.
2. Biographical Information:
Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2001.
3. Reviews of Major Works:
African Passions: Bendel, Adrienne A. "Humor infuses stories of Cuban-Americans." Denver Post 19 March 1995:E10
Benson, Mary Margaret. Library Journal 1 March 1995:102.
Ekstrom, M.V. CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries 33.2 (1995): 295-96.
Omang, Joanne. The Washington Post. 14 May 1995:WBK4
Midnight Sandwiches at the Mariposa Express: Publishers Weekly 1 Sept. 1997: 97.
Playing in Light: Blodgett, Jan. Library Journal 125 (August 2000): 161.
Leber, Michele. Booklist. 1 Sept. 2000: 67.
Publishers Weekly. 4 September 2000: 85.
"Trick of Light." Hispania News 8 Dec. 2000. <http://www.hispanianews.com/ archive/2000/December08/02.htm>
Frederick Luis Aldama teaches Latino/a literature and film at University of Colorado, Boulder. His interviews have appeared in Poets & Writers, El Andar, Frontera Magazine, World Literature Today, and Cross Cultural Poetics. He is the author of the forthcoming Dancing With Ghosts: A Critical Biography of Arturo Islas (U of California P) and Hybridity and Mimesis: Magicorealism and the Postethnic Novel and Film (U of Texas P).
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