Glendaliz Camacho, writer |
I asked her to sit next to me in our 6th grade
computer/typing class and a friendship was born. That led to many novel-length
notes passed back and forth during class (even if she doesn’t remember the
details). Our paths diverged and converged a few years ago and she’s still
writing. Perhaps a writer is born. I stopped by her office (the day job) at SHARE on Friday afternoon.
~ ~ ~
Well, my name is Glendaliz Camacho. I’m a writer,
also an editor and a translator. I’ve worked in publishing, years ago, and
magazine article writing and right now I’m working on fiction; on short fiction
and a novel.
I’m sure there’s that
one story that you haven’t shared. Which story is that? And why haven’t you
shared it?
I don’t know that I only have one story that I haven’t shared. I think there’s a couple. I think
they marinate in my brain for quite some time and then when I’m ready then I
can kinda start working on it. Like even the story that I’m working on right
now, it’s something that I’ve had in my head for a while that came outta a
passing comment that my Dad made about my great-grandparents. So this one factoid that he gave me about them got me thinking but it took a long time. So
that would be the story that I haven’t been able to tell, haven’t told. But I
think I have a couple of them like that, usually if they’re not about myself
and my more scandalous times, then they’re about family or something.
So when you mentioned
your more scandalous times, I don’t remember her name, but I’ll just call you
“Senorita Una in a Million”. You’re really good at tugging on the
heartstrings when it comes to personal essays and retelling life. Any plans to
go back to that form of writing?
I’m very good at destroying my own work. A lot of other
writers are really horrified [at it]. I have no problem tossing something in
the garbage. I have no problem deleting something forever. I feel if you can’t
do that then it’s almost as if ... what are you never gonna write anything as
good or better again? You feel the need to hold on to every precious word? They’re not that precious. Most of it is probably crap. You have to be able to
let go sometimes.
So I don’t know. I did enjoy blog writing a lot. I think the issue became privacy. I think the older that I’ve gotten—I mean my 20’s is really
very open and about myself, about my dysfunctions about my life and everything,
I really don’t have no shame, let’s say, but then like the older I get,
especially as I’ve gotten into my 30’s and I’ve met more people and more
artists I’ve been influenced by particular people in my life, women in my life,
I kinda started to feel like privacy was an issue. Even my Dad would read my
blog and I would have things on there that my Dad really does not need to be reading and he would be like, “Oh that’s a very mature piece of writing” cause he’s a
writer too so he wouldn’t really approach it from a parenting standpoint
he would approach it from a writing standpoint. But the older I get I want more
anonymity, I don’t want my picture taken as much, which kinda sounds like a
douchebag thing sometimes. But it’s just a getting older thing where I’m just a
lot more careful. It was a lot of fun blog-writing. I don’t know if I’ll get
back to it or not. Blog writing was kinda just something I did to loosen my
hand up for writing for magazines, just to kinda keep me in the practice of
writing. Now that I’m kinda able to do that with fiction it’s like I’ve had
to let go to make room for other things.
What have you had
published and in what publications?
Well the first thing I ever published was a memoir-style
story about my grandparents living in Chicago
in a Polish neighborhood and being the only Dominicans in that neighborhood.
That was in the Whistling Shade literary journal. That was a great
thrill. I had an article in Miami New Times. I wrote for about 2 or 3 years, I
was a staff writer for DTM Magazine and I would just do entertainment
pieces, you know stuff on theater, film and started a book review section
there, I’d do features, interviews, things like that—the lighter side of
journalism. I’m so glad I never went to J school. It’s awful. The Acentos Review,
they’ve published 2 of my stories. They’ve been very supportive. I know there’s
more, I just can’t think of it at this time. But those are like kinda the main
ones, the ones that I’m the most proud of. Oh, I was also in an anthology for
Bushwick Media called The Period Project. So I’m in that also. So, yeah.
Right now, I’m shopping around an anthology that I edited called Missing Pages, so kinda seeing where
that’s gonna go. That’s been a process.
As a writer, what’s
the one thing you’ve tried and failed at miserably?
Oooh, let’s see [laughs] Usually, I think the things we fail
at are like, um … imitation to a certain extent … sometimes you read something
that you really like and you wish you
had written it yourself or you wish
you could write like that and you try to write in that person’s voice … it
doesn’t work sometimes cause it’s not you, it’s not authentic, so it’s a very
fine line navigating between being influenced by another writer and adopting a
voice that isn’t yours. I think that hasn’t worked whenever I’ve done something
like that.
I think I tried to write a play when I was in my early 20’s and I’m so glad I tossed it, it did not survive to this day. That was a fail. So I’ve tried playwriting a couple of times, I considered minoring in playwriting when I was in college cause I just like theater so much, I like that form of writing, but I’m not successful at it. It reminds me, I think it was, aye, I can’t remember who it was, a really brilliant writer, I think it was Alice Walker when they were doing The Color Purple, I could be wrong, I’m not sure, but it was a really brilliant writer, wrote a novel, the novel got turned into this great movie and they asked the writer, “Why didn’t you write the screenplay?” And the writer was like, “Well that’s not my genre.” You kinda gotta know where you fit and where you don’t and you have to be honest with yourself. Some people are very prolific and can do various genres well but if you can’t you have to realize that you can’t.
I think I tried to write a play when I was in my early 20’s and I’m so glad I tossed it, it did not survive to this day. That was a fail. So I’ve tried playwriting a couple of times, I considered minoring in playwriting when I was in college cause I just like theater so much, I like that form of writing, but I’m not successful at it. It reminds me, I think it was, aye, I can’t remember who it was, a really brilliant writer, I think it was Alice Walker when they were doing The Color Purple, I could be wrong, I’m not sure, but it was a really brilliant writer, wrote a novel, the novel got turned into this great movie and they asked the writer, “Why didn’t you write the screenplay?” And the writer was like, “Well that’s not my genre.” You kinda gotta know where you fit and where you don’t and you have to be honest with yourself. Some people are very prolific and can do various genres well but if you can’t you have to realize that you can’t.
What do you do to
prevent burnout?
Some people would argue I need to provoke burn-in [laughs]
because I’m very easily distracted. I’m not a highly disciplined writer. I
write in flurries, when I’m inspired and I’ve had those nights where I stay up
till 2, 3, 4 in the morning and I’m like, “Oh my God, I have to get up early in
the morning but I have to get this out now.” I don’t have a ritual, I don’t
write every single day. I do a lot rereading, I do a lot of tweaking so it’s
like, yeah, it’s a weird process. But to prevent burnout, I try to live. I just
try to live life. I try to do something away from the page cause it all feeds
the page anyway. You have to bring stuff to the page and that comes from living
and having experiences. So whether that means going out for drinks with a
couple of friends, going and catching a movie, going to see an exhibit,
spending time with people I love, listening to music, it’s just getting away
from it for a moment, you know? And sometimes you even have to get away from
writers cause then you get together and all they wanna talk about is writing.
So I do have those days when I can’t even be around my writer friends cause I
have to get away. So I think that’s the key to preventing burnout—give yourself
time to get away.
Name Drop. 3 to 5 people that you think are worth “name
dropping.
This is what people feel like when they make Oscar speeches
and trying not to forget people? Um, let me see, people whose work I think definitely
should be read…
Right. Or think about
people that you’ve worked with, who you’ve met.
So many good friends who are so talented and all deserved to
be read. That’s kinda why I wanted to do that anthology cause I kept having
people in my life … I’m like, “Oh my God, these stories should be read by more
people!” Um, let me see … I’ll tell you people who’ve influenced me, like
definitely Suheir Hammad. She’s a poet, a different genre completely but
just definitely somebody who should be read. Somebody that I read and I could
understand their use of language, even though it’s a completely different genre,
and someone who makes me look at my writing a little more closely. Poets make
you do that, and I’m not a humungous poetry fan, but a really good poet like
her will make you kind of sharpen your own knife even though you have a bigger
knife to work with cause we get to be so verbose and, you know, poets in
general have to be very taut, so it’s good to look at a poet so you can tighten
up your own use of language. So that’s definitely one person and just as a
person, as an individual she’s amazing. So people should definitely be reading
her.
Um, who else … Vanessa Mártir, definitely. She’s been working on a memoir this year and she’s a brilliant writer, she’s a great writer but even more than that, her grind is just ridiculous. I mean for someone like me who’s very undisciplined and easily distracted, easily distracted, to have a friendship with somebody who just really makes it a ritual to write everyday and to grind and really work at their craft and you know, not to say that I don’t do those things also but she does them with a certain diligence that I respect. And that I learn from. So that’s definitely another person that I think, people should definitely be watching out for her memoir.
Um, who else … Vanessa Mártir, definitely. She’s been working on a memoir this year and she’s a brilliant writer, she’s a great writer but even more than that, her grind is just ridiculous. I mean for someone like me who’s very undisciplined and easily distracted, easily distracted, to have a friendship with somebody who just really makes it a ritual to write everyday and to grind and really work at their craft and you know, not to say that I don’t do those things also but she does them with a certain diligence that I respect. And that I learn from. So that’s definitely another person that I think, people should definitely be watching out for her memoir.
In any language,
what’s your favorite word, and why?
You know what one of my favorite words has always been and
that I’ve kinda held close to my heart? From Ms. McGauren’s 5th
grade class, magnanimous. I’ve always
had a fondness for that word. I don’t know why. Every once in a while I
like saying it for no reason. She used to do these vocabulary lessons and magnanimous - I always remembered that
word.
If you had to choose
between junior high and high school, which one would you go back to?
Definitely junior high. High school was kinda like a
isolating experience for me. Junior high had a lot more camaraderie in it and
you know it’s nice not to pay bills or have sex, I guess that part was nice
too. You know just play jump rope, it’s got innocence to it, that was awesome.
High school was like, I was already twisted by the time I went into high school
so I would not want to repeat that.
Which stereotype do
you fit?
I think I fit a couple to my own dismay. I think I
definitely fit a writer’s stereotype, the stereotype of kinda being a little
tortured, thinking things over, being emotional, slightly egotistical, I mean,
you know, writers want to be read which gives you an ego cause you’re
constantly clawing for somebody to read your stuff, so definitely a writer’s
stereotype I fit. Sometimes I fit a stereotype of a female. I guess, yeah, the whole
being emotional thing, you know, looking for meaning behind things is also like
kinda a big female stereotype. We never take things, allegedly, we never take
things at face value, we’re always looking for “Well what does that really
mean?” So I definitely fit that stereotype. I have fat girl stereotype, I mean
there’s everything. So I think I fit a couple of those boxes. And then there’s
a couple of boxes I don’t fit.
Remember the old
format of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”? What is the one topic you’d have to
phone-a-friend about?
You know, for a writer, not that every writer has to have a
good memory, but I don’t really have a good memory of events which is probably
why I write fiction because I can’t remember what really happened so I have to
make up my own truth. I would have to phone-a-friend if I’m asked about details
about an event. Just anything. “Hey do you remember when we were hanging out on
such and such day and this person came up to you?” “Nah, I really don’t
remember.” Or “Don’t you remember what we talked about?” And I’d be like I
really don’t remember that conversation so things with details I would
definitely have to phone a friend about. My friends always, again sometimes to
my own dismay, they remember details about things that I’ve done that I’ll be
like, “Are you crazy? I don’t remember that. Who’s living this life?” Maybe
that’s like a defense mechanism, to forget. Yeah, details I have to call my
friends about.
Tell me about Egypt.
Awww, Egypt
is home. Which is going to sound really weird coming from someone who’s never
been there. But Egypt
feels like home to me. Like anytime I look at pictures of Egypt,
anytime I read about Egypt,
there’s a comfort that washes over me. The only thing you can compare it to is
when you take a trip somewhere and you’re coming back from the airport and you
like drive through your neighborhood and everything starts to grow familiar to
you again, like the buildings or whatever, that’s how I feel when I look at pictures
of Egypt or read about Egypt—Ancient Egypt specifically I’m talking about.
There’s a feeling like you’ve been there before and you’ve lived there before
or like you have an affinity to this culture, for no reason, like for no
logical reason. It’s the same way I feel about Italy.
And when I did end up going there, I felt like ‘I could live here’, like ‘I
could really see myself living here’. Yeah so Egypt
has like a certain comfort for me.
What’s your prized
possession?
I have worked so hard not to be attached to any material
thing that it often scares other people who are
attached to material things, like their cell phones … I didn’t have a cell phone
for like 2 years and it would freak people out. Like they really couldn’t
understand how you could live, you
know? Same thing in my home I try to not remain attached to anything. Normally,
my prized possession is my computer cause it’s such a … but I say that and I
haven’t had a computer for like a year and a half, you know, so, yeah, I
honestly don’t have a possession that I would flip out about if I didn’t have
it. I think I can accept letting anything go, material-wise.
Head, shoulders,
knees or toes?
All right, no toes cause I’m really funny about feet, my own
and everyone else’s. It doesn’t matter, no feet. No knees either. I don’t know,
that just doesn’t do it for me. I’m gonna say shoulders, man. I’m gonna say
shoulders. I like seeing, I mean if we’re talking sexy right now …
Yeah!
I like seeing the strain in someone’s shoulder. I like
seeing strain in muscles. I’m a big fan of Renaissance art. Like even when I
was a little kid, my Dad was an assistant curator in [a] museum so he’d have
art books around, you know I was always flipping through books of Michelangelo,
you know those artists were really into the human anatomy and just kinda muscle
and stuff so I like seeing strain in the shoulder … If you know what I mean.
[laughs]
Complete this
statement: If my muse were an animal, it would be…
If my muse were an animal, it would be a lion. That’s what
popped into my head first. Yeah, I feel an affinity to those lazy bastards. [laughs]
It’s kinda like, they just hang for like a long time, you know, they swat their
tails around, it’s a lot of lounging and I think I do that a lot too. And then
when it’s time to get up and do something they’re kinda like vicious about it,
ferocious about it. So I like that they expend energy only when they
necessarily have to, and the rest of the time they’re kind of living. So, yeah,
lion.
Great questions, Abigail! Thoughtful and provoking! Good back and forth rapport ladies! Love artists speaking with artists.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jennifer! Camacho's a sharp tack so I needed good questions to provoke thought!
DeleteDope! I feel the same way about why I blog a lot less and the whole privacy thing as I get older. Also feeling that struggle not to write in someone else's voice. Great stuff. Look at you gifted and talented students.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why I don't blog personal anecdotes anymore, but part of it is nothing blog-worthy was happening. Gifted and talented students unite!
Delete