[ Music ]
>> Robert Casper: Hello,
and welcome to the
National Book Festival.
My name is Rob Casper, from
the Library of Congress,
and I'm here with
Kali Fajardo-Anstine,
whose feature book at the
Festival is Sabrina & Corina.
If you'd like to see Kali's
presentation at the Festival,
log in to
nationalbookfestival.com.
You'll find it on
the Fiction Stage.
Welcome, Kali.
It's so good to have you here
virtually at the Festival.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Hi.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited to be here.
>> Robert Casper:
Well, we're thrilled
to have you answer questions
by the attendees here.
Folks, note that you can send
in questions through the Q
and A feature on the platform.
I'll try my best to get to
as many of the questions
in the allotted time we have.
I just wanted to start
by talking about place.
I know you started writing
this book in Denver,
traveled a bit outside of the
city and the state to work
on it, and then came back.
Can you tell us about
that process?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.
So I actually started this
book when I was very young.
I was in my early
20s, and I was going
to Metropolitan State University
of Denver, which is right
down -- right downtown,
blocks away from where I
live still to this day.
And at that point, I
didn't know I wanted to set
out to write a collection
about Denver
that was set here,
anything like that.
I was just writing
what was coming to me.
And eventually, I went to
the University of Wyoming,
where I received
my MFA in fiction.
And the stories in Sabrina &
Corina really started out --
the majority were in my thesis.
And after the University
of Wyoming,
I took a fellowship
in South Carolina.
I lived for a while
in Key West, Florida.
I lived in Durango, Colorado.
And I was really
moving and living
in all these different parts of
the country, trying to find jobs
that would somehow
fund my writing.
And at the same time,
I was working
on the stories in
Sabrina & Corina.
And I was also working
on my forthcoming novel.
So the stories, to me, they
would bring me back to Denver
when I was working on
them when I was far away.
And I was surprised,
when I got home --
that was around 20
-- 2015, 2016.
I was surprised when I
came back to Colorado,
and I took a teaching
job in Durango,
how much the city had changed
and how much my stories
reflected a time and place
that didn't necessarily exist
anymore, but did in my book.
So yeah, it's been a really
exciting process, and I wrote --
I wrote these stories all
over the country, really.
>> Robert Casper: Can
you talk about the place
that existed before,
that is no longer there,
that's contained
within the stories?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.
I think one of the beautiful
things about fiction is it sort
of serves as an imaginative
record of time.
And so this isn't a documentary.
This isn't a nonfiction book.
This is something
that I invented.
But it also was invented out of
the reality that I knew growing
up in Denver in the early
'90s into the aughts.
And during that time,
Denver experienced rapid
growth, rapid gentrification.
And so there are
areas in the city --
neighborhoods like the west
side and the north side
and Five Points --
neighborhoods where my relatives
and my ancestors lived -- that
are no longer the same at all.
And, in fact, developers
have tried
to rename those places
and, in a way,
are completely erasing the
history of what was once there.
And so I think the stories in
Sabrina & Corina really speak
to a Denver of the mid
'90s, the early 2000s.
And some of the stories
even go back further
in time into the 1950s.
And those stories are based
on my ancestors'
lives in this place.
>> Robert Casper: Can you
talk about the characters
in the book, where
they came from,
and how they may
connect to one another?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.
So the characters, I really --
I'm an author that absolutely
adores my characters.
I think of them sort
of, like, as friends.
And even the characters who
are quote unquote villains,
essentially, I have to get
to know them really well.
And so I have to know their
motives and what it is
about their soul that would make
them commit these, you know,
violent acts that
sometimes happen.
So some of the characters
I would say are composites
of real-life people
that I've known.
I'm thinking of the
character Dodie [phonetic]
in the story Sisters.
She's based on a
great-great-auntie of mine,
and while I had never
met her in person --
she died well before
I was born --
I had heard so many
stories about her.
And so, when she revealed
herself to me as a character,
I remember I was walking
around my 1890s apartment
in Laramie, Wyoming.
It was really cold.
It was the middle of winter.
And this voice just
started coming through me.
And I pulled out my iPhone,
and I made a voice memo.
And the cadence was
nothing like the way I talk.
And so sometimes my
characters have the ability
to overwhelm me.
But I find them -- I think
I find them sort of just
out existing in the world.
And when they reveal themselves
to me, they're totally unique.
And I feel -- I feel in some
way like they're real people
that I've just --
I've known somehow.
>> Robert Casper:
Patricia [phonetic] asked
about the research that
you did for the book,
and if there was
anything that you found
in the research that
was surprising.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: I'd say
some of the research that I did
for the book -- more
so for my next book --
and I think, when my
novel is published,
most of my talks will probably
be about historical research.
But the muscle I was building,
while I was researching Denver
in the 1930s and 1920s, was
also contributing to the stories
as I was revising them.
For example, the story Sisters,
I mentioned is set in the 1950s.
And one of the things that
I found most surprising
when I started digging
through the state archives
and genealogy centers is
how little exists in terms
of the Hispano/Chicano presence
in Colorado, which is shocking
because I believe a third of
the state was once Mexico.
And so our families are still
here, but we're not existing
in this large historical way
-- in the record, at least.
So that was surprising to me.
And then I started realizing
that this is a larger problem.
And so a lot of my work
now has pushed me into sort
of the zone of, I would
say, archival justice.
And I think a lot of it has to
do with building relationships
between communities of color
who have been excluded
from archives.
And so you'll see more and
more of my work, I think,
take on that sort of
tone as time goes on.
Thank you for that question.
>> Robert Casper: Yes.
Yes. Well, Glenna [phonetic]
asks a question that's related
to your response, which is
about any difficulty you had
published -- getting published,
and whether or not that was
due to discrimination both
as a woman and as a Chicano.
And how did that play out?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
I think, obviously,
everything I've experienced
in my life has come
through that intersection
of a woman, Chicana.
I'm also mixed race;
my father is white.
And I also have characters
who are mixed race.
And so I think that was
sort of new [laughing].
That -- it's not new to me,
and it's not new to millions
of people, but I think that
was sort of hard for, maybe,
literary establishment
to understand.
So the pathway to get
published was very long.
As I think I said earlier, that
Sabrina & Corina was my thesis,
and I graduated from 2013 --
or I graduated in 2013 from
the University of Wyoming.
And I didn't receive a
book deal until 2017.
And so during that
time, I was trying
to get the stories published
in literary journals,
but I was never able to
get out of the slush pile.
Actually, I take that back.
My very first publication,
Remedies,
in the Bellevue Literary Review,
did get out of the slush pile.
But for the most part, I was
not able to get published
through the traditional pathway.
And so a lot of my
publications had to come
through human connection,
meeting people,
talking to them in person.
And while that is, I'd
say, a longer road to walk,
when the book finally came out,
I had a much larger community
willing to welcome me.
So yeah. I don't have any
regrets about the path.
It just -- it took a long
time, but I think I'm
where I'm supposed to be now.
>> Robert Casper: Yeah.
Janina [phonetic] asked about
the kind of energy one needs
to write seriously while
holding down a full-time job.
And how do you maintain
the momentum of the story
when needing to put it aside?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
I think that's a --
that's a really excellent
question,
and I think it's something we
need to talk about more and more
as writers because
this is not --
if you're writing
literary fiction,
especially if you're writing
literary short stories,
you're not going to make
a living right off the bat
doing this.
And so you have to be able
to balance a day job
with your writing.
For me, it was difficult.
I had to make sacrifices
in my life.
My whole life is built
toward my writing,
and so I think that's
another thing I had to do.
So I took jobs that were
less time-consuming,
less strenuous on me.
When I got my book deal
for Sabrina & Corina,
I was a part-time
office manager.
And so I worked -- I worked 20
hours a week in an old church
for a legal -- a
legal non-profit.
And I would answer emails,
and I would file papers.
And then I would go
at, like, two o'clock,
and I'd go to a coffee
shop or a library,
and I would write the
rest of the afternoon.
And then, I'd wake up
and I'd do it again.
And so I had just
been conditioned
to live very frugally and
not make very much money
at my real job, and then go and
work on my stories and hope,
in the end, it would pay off.
So my advice is to
just try to have a plan
about giving yourself
over to your art,
and I think your
art will repay you.
>> Robert Casper: There's a
question just about outlining,
and how do you -- how
do you set out to sort
of figure out each story?
Do you do outlines?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
I do now.
When I was a younger writer,
I was much more driven
by instinct.
And I would just get that,
sort of, that flurry of --
I had, like, this great idea,
and I'd have to rush home
from wherever I was, and I'd
have to write it all out.
But as I got older, I
realized that this was chaotic,
and it was not going to
help me write on a schedule.
So I create outlines, but
I first allow my draft
to start coming out naturally.
And then I start to look at
what the characters are doing.
And so maybe about a
quarter of the way through,
that's when I make
the first outline.
And then I go through, and
I write the whole story,
and then I adjust the outline
because the characters
will normally sort
of do what they want
and go off in directions
that you did not plan.
But yes. I do maybe two or
three rounds of outlining.
>> Robert Casper: Ami's
[phonetic] really excited
to encounter you and your
work for the first time here
and wonders, as a
brand-new reader,
which story of yours you would
recommend she start with.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: I
would always recommend starting
with the very first story in
the book, which is why I put it
as the first story:
Sugar Babies.
And I think Sugar Babies sort
of gives readers a glimpse
into the topics that I deal
with, which a lot have to do
with feminism, this idea of
place and connection to land.
But it also showcases my
humor and my lighter side,
which I think a lot
of the stories have,
even if they can --
they also have sort
of this darker side
to them as well.
>> Robert Casper: Patrice
[phonetic] is actually very
excited about this new
novel she's hearing about,
and she wonders more about it.
So you can tell -- tell more
about what it's --
what it's about?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.
I'd love to.
So I started a novel
when I was much younger,
and I did not have
the skill level
that I had now or have now.
And so I sort of abandoned it.
But this is the big story
that I always wanted to tell,
and it's about my great-
grandmother's generation coming
to Denver in the 1920s.
And it follows their lives
in the 1930s in Denver.
What I found unique
about my family is
that they did not come
from very far away.
They came from northern New
Mexico, southern Colorado.
And I always wanted to
know what was our origin.
You know, how did we become
the people that we are,
living in the city
where we live.
So it's a -- it's a big,
multi-generational tale.
It spans 1890 to 1933.
It's got Wild West
shows, tea-leaf readings,
snake charmers, and it's
really fun to write.
And I can't wait for
you guys to read it.
>> Robert Casper: And can
you talk about the process
of writing that and how it
might have been different
than writing the short
stories, and especially
in terms of a sense of scope?
That's a question from
Patricia [phonetic].
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.
So I -- it's just -- to me,
when I write a short story
or when I start a novel,
I don't really think
of them as different.
I think of myself
as just writing.
And the issue, when I
started the novel earlier,
was it's just a bigger story.
And so I didn't have
the momentum or stamina
to keep working on
a larger story.
That was something that I
had to develop over years
of making myself write, meeting
word quotas, and developing sort
of this muscle memory
as a writer.
Also, the amount of
historical research I had to do
for this novel pales
in comparison --
or anything that I've ever done
for the short stories pales
in comparison to what
I've had to do for a novel
that is set in another era.
So I really had to
learn a number
of different skills while
I was working on the book,
and I had many what I would
consider false starts,
but they led to the right start.
And the way that
I wrote this was,
I would write chapters
at a time.
And I would send them
to my literary agent,
and she would give me notes
and I would work on them,
you know, one piece at a time.
And so I really built this
book over a span of years.
>> Robert Casper:
What's the first story
in Sabrina & Corina
that you finished?
And what was the hardest
story that you had to write?
I'm curious.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.
I -- the very first
story that I wrote was --
it actually was Ghost Sickness.
I wrote Ghost Sickness when I
was an undergrad at Metro State,
but the very first
story that I wrote
and got published was Remedies.
And I revised it
heavily for the book.
[coughing] Excuse me.
Yeah. But the chronology of
the stories -- it kind of --
the younger characters,
I mostly wrote those
when I was a younger person.
>> Robert Casper: And tell
us about the challenge
of the connection between
your wanting to tell the tale
of your family and creating
this novel -- between, you know,
the fact of your family
and your family's migration
and what became this
piece of fiction.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
I think it's --
it's never been conflicting
for me.
I don't -- my family is
very proud and honored
that I'm writing about us.
We've never been in any books
[laughing], so I think, like,
they're just so excited.
And I think some people are,
you know, they're shocked
that my family would be
so celebratory when I deal
with very heavy themes.
But these are themes
that have been dealing --
my family has been dealing with,
and my community has been
dealing with, for generations.
And so I think they're --
they're more excited
to see someone finally
talking about it in this way.
In terms of wanting to tell the
story and stay true to the story
and also tell -- you know,
write a novel, I am not --
I'm not writing non-fiction
about my family.
I am inventing.
I'm using plot.
I'm using all the
skills of fiction.
And so, in that way, it's
actually been really freeing,
and it's been a really
interesting way to get
to know my ancestors
because I'm sort
of letting my subconscious
mind allow me
to see what these
characters would do
and how they would behave.
And it's sort of like knowing
your great-grandparents in a way
that you would never
know because they're --
you're not going to be there
with them on their first date
or the first time they have
sex with somebody or, you know,
these really strange moments
that your great-grandparents
would never tell you about,
but now, as a writer, I'm going
through and I'm sort of looking
at these moments really
closely, and it's fascinating.
>> Robert Casper: My
colleague, Michelle [phonetic],
asked a very smart question
and, of course, you know,
we are the Library of Congress.
She asks, where do
you do your research?
The libraries?
Archives?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Yes.
I use libraries extensively.
A little-known secret
about me is that I applied
to Library Science
programs twice.
And both times I was
accepted, but each time I sort
of drifted away and moved
back toward my writing.
But I did an internship
in records management
in Washington, DC, and I was
all set to become an archivist.
So I am always working
with libraries.
I love librarians.
I wanted to be one
of you [laughing].
And I ended up going
a different path.
But I work a lot at the Denver
Public Library's Western
Genealogy floor.
It's one of the most
exquisite collections
that we have here in
the American West.
>> Robert Casper: Wow.
Tiffany [phonetic] asks
a question about how
to get your book and
stories of people
who are too often overlooked
into school curriculums.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
I would --
I would say something
that I did,
when my book first came out,
I wrote handwritten postcards
to the chairs of Chicano studies
all across the southwest.
And I wrote bookstores
handwritten postcards.
I wrote emails to
teachers in the area.
And so, at the beginning,
nobody knew who I was.
Nobody knew about
these characters.
Nobody knew anything.
And, after a while, people
started reading the book,
and then they would
share the information
that they had learned
with other people.
But I think you just
have to start somewhere,
and just start letting people
know that your work exists
in the world, and
get it up there
to the decision-makers
in the curriculum.
>> Robert Casper:
Natalie says there are
so many good Chicana/Chicano
short-story writers.
Who are your favorites?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: I
would love to know who --
I would love to know Natalie's
list too because there's --
we don't have very many
Mexican-American-identifying
short-story writers.
I can think of Sandra Cisneros
and Helena Maria Viramontes.
And I believe Kirstin Valdez
Quade identifies as Chicana.
But I really would love to
see more and more coming
to the table, and I think
that's on publishers
to start giving our books a
chance and publishing more.
>> Robert Casper: Tell us
about your relationship
with your publisher
and what they've done
to really support this book
and get behind the
forthcoming novel as well.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
Definitely.
So my publisher is
Penguin Random House,
and I'm on the imprint
One World,
and I've just had a
spectacular experience.
I've always felt
nurtured and supported.
They allowed me to pick my
cover art, or they allowed me
to pick the artist for my
cover, which is unheard of.
They listen to me when I --
when I say, hey, I don't know
if this edit is going
in the right direction.
And so I feel like I
have a lot of freedom,
but I also have professionals
who are saying, like,
we know best, so allow
us sometimes [laughing]
to like give you some
of our knowledge.
One World bought both Sabrina &
Corina and my forthcoming novel
at the same time in 2017.
And, at the time, when
my editor, Nicole Counts,
when she made the offer, I
didn't expect anyone would want
to publish Sabrina & Corina
because I had been told time
and time again that the big
five publishers do not want
to take chances on
short-story collections.
And so, in that way, I think
One World is also unique
because they're taking chances.
They're publishing
groundbreaking work.
They're publishing poetry.
They're publishing
short-story collections.
And it's just -- it's
such a remarkable imprint,
and I'm super-proud
to be on One World.
>> Robert Casper: And they must
have felt just so affirmed,
and you, too, when you got the
National Book Festival nod --
nomination.
So congratulations to
both you and your editor
for bucking that
bad advice of --
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
Thank you [laughing].
Thank you.
>> Robert Casper:
Kristen [phonetic] asks
about the pandemic and if it's
impacting your writing life
or your writing.
>> Robert Casper: Yeah.
It's impacted my
writing life extensively.
My main source of income
is no longer there.
So the way that I
was making any sort
of income was doing
live speaking events.
And since that's gone,
it's really shifted my
finances in a significant way.
And so that's created
stress that then --
that goes over to the
writing situation.
But one of the other ways that
it's impacted my writing is
that I never expected
that I would write stories
that are set during this time.
But I already wrote
a couple [laughing],
so I'm already writing about it.
And I do think that it's --
it's just so challenging for
so many artists right now
because the ways that we make
money are few and far between.
>> Robert Casper: And what's
it like to write stories
about the here-and-now, after
having worked for so long
on a book set in the past and
connected to your ancestors?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
You know, I think that,
as human beings, there's some,
you know, element about us
that does not really change.
And when I'm working on
characters in the 1890s
and when I'm working with
characters right now,
that core -- that thing
that makes us human
-- that is unchanging.
And so I don't find
it that difficult
to switch between time periods.
It's more like learning
about the nuance
of that particular time.
And one of the things that's
defining this time period right
now is the way we're
interacting with each other
with half our face
covered [laughing].
So I think that that is
something that's already
happened though in
American history
and during the great
influenza pandemic.
So there are novels and
there are short stories
that also deal with that.
>> Robert Casper:
We have a question,
but first it's a thanks
for your great work.
But the follow-up
question then is,
has Latin American literature
been an influence on you at all?
>> Robert Casper: Yeah.
Definitely.
Being from Colorado and being
of a family that's mixed race
and indigenous to the
southwest, I wasn't really sure
when I was growing
up which literature
that I would find at home in.
And so, when I was a teenager,
I really started reading a lot
of works in translation:
Albert Camus,
The Stranger, Kafka's work.
But another writer who
became very influential
to me very young was
Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
And so One Hundred Years
of Solitude, I would say,
is probably the most influential
book to me, probably next to,
like, Harry Potter [laughing].
I love the Harry Potter books.
>> Robert Casper: Yeah.
Well, and I will say, there
was a similar sort of question
that an audience member
posed to Colson Whitehead,
and he said the same thing.
So you two share Marquez as
a very profound influence.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
That's interesting.
>> Robert Casper: Yeah.
Roxanne [phonetic]
asks about the need
to tell the stories you tell.
Where -- talk about the kind
of driving impulse behind
those -- the stories.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: You
know, I think there's a quote
from Hemingway that's
something like,
every writer needs a built-in,
shock-proof shit-detector.
And I think [laughing] I always
grew up with sort of this idea
that I understood
pretty, like, you know,
immediately what
injustice was when I saw it.
I felt it when I
was a little girl.
I felt it between
conversations with people,
and I always was sort
of interested in, like,
revealing why that
injustice was happening.
And so I don't know where
this drive comes from.
I think it has something
to do with my family.
My mother is an activist, and
she's done Chicana programming
in the schools all across
Colorado for 30 years.
So I do think it's
inherited in some way,
but I just think it's
part of my outlook
on life and my worldview.
And when I get the
urge to write a story,
it usually comes sort
of spontaneously.
It's sort of, like,
it's bubbling out of me,
and I just can't
keep it in anymore.
>> Robert Casper:
Kathy [phonetic] says
that you mentioned the
challenges of writing
about difficult topics.
And are there topics or subjects
that are difficult that you hope
to address in the
future in your writing?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
You know, I don't really --
I don't write based on topics.
So I don't have, like, a list of
topics that I want to address.
I think whatever comes
out in my work comes
through the characters.
And so, in the next
book, there's some topics
that I'm sort of taking
on that I didn't take
on in Sabrina & Corina.
And one of them is masculinity
and women's relationships
to different male family members
and to men in their community.
And so I think that is
something that I didn't --
I didn't choose to
start exploring,
but I definitely did not explore
it as much in Sabrina & Corina.
>> Robert Casper: Yeah.
And can you talk about the
moment when, as a writer,
you suddenly confront a
subject or a plot or a sort
of a character decision
that you didn't expect
that seems difficult,
and how you sort of push
into it or push through it?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
That's a --
that's an excellent question.
I can think of several places
in Sabrina & Corina
where that happened.
So I was really,
really surprised
in the short story Any Further
West, when the narrator told me,
essentially, that her mother
dies young and she ODs.
And while I did not put that
scene in the short story,
I did write it, and it was very
difficult for me to take on.
I remember crying and
thinking, like, I don't want
to kill my characters.
And so, there, I do have this
sort of connection to them,
but sometimes they do reveal
things that are very painful
for even me, as the
author, to write about.
But I think it's serving a
purpose for the characters.
But it also is helping readers
who maybe have experienced
similar things or, you know,
have gone through
something that's adjacent
to that experience.
So when I -- when
characters sort
of present something that's
difficult like that or shocking,
I've usually -- my impulse
is to listen to them and try
to understand why
they're revealing this.
>> Robert Casper: So
Janine [phonetic] is asking,
at what point in life
did you decide you wanted
to be a writer?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
I am one of those weirdos
that [laughing] -- I only wanted
to do one thing my whole life.
I -- well, that's not true.
So I wanted to be an astronomer
when I was a little girl
or a country singer.
But I can't sing.
And I still am obsessed
with space,
but I definitely did not want
to become an astronomer
after a while.
But I was writing stories
since the time I was
in first or second grade.
I think I did my first writer's
workshop in third grade.
But yeah. It's -- I'm
one of those people
that always wanted to do this.
But that's not to say that
people who don't have that,
like, one-directional
arrow are not writers
because there's all
kinds of different levels
of when did you start.
And some people don't pick up
the pen until they're in middle
or late age, and they
become wonderful writers.
>> Robert Casper: When
did you decide you wanted
to be a writer as a profession?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
I always -- I always did.
>> Robert Casper: Yeah.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
[laughing] It was a dream.
I didn't expect that
I would get my dream,
and that's why I wanted to be
other things along the path.
>> Robert Casper: Well, luckily
you did, and we're thrilled
to have you here at the
National Book Festival
in celebration of your book.
Thank you so much
for your time, Kali.
We've been speaking with
Kali Fajardo-Anstine,
whose book is Sabrina & Corina.
You can find her presentation
on the Fiction Stage
of the National Book Festival
at nationalbookfestival.com.
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