I met Felecia because we teach at the same community college. Our first real conversation was when I agreed to sub a fiction class for her. My department is large and I admit that I’m not overly social, but as soon I started talking with Felecia, my first thought was Why haven’t I been talking to her all along? She was genuine, funny, kind, and clearly an excellent teacher. A few years later I got to hear her read from her novel in progress and I was floored by just how good a writer she is, too.
We hope you enjoy our interview with her!
Plume: When did you know you were a writer?
Felecia Caton-Garcia: Ever since I was four or five years old and counting out haiku syllables on tiny fingers to pass the time on long car trips with my dad, I knew I loved language. But I still find myself hesitant to claim the title. What does it mean to be a writer? Is it when I’m getting published? When I’m writing work I think is good, but not publishing? When I’m writing work I hate? When I’m not writing at all, but still thinking about it all the time? I don’t know if I’m a writer, but I’m going to keep writing anyway.
P: Where do you get your ideas?
FCG: My ideas come to me from the world. I hear that some folks have a hotline to the Muse, and I think that’s fantastic, but it isn’t me. If there is one theory of origin for art that resonates with me, it would have to be Garcia Lorca’s ideas of duende. My ideas emerge from my investigation in the dark crevices of our society, our history, my memory, my sense of self. I write because I want to drag the parts of the world and the parts of myself that are more comfortable lounging in the peripheral vision—almost, but not quite seen.
P: Where do you write? Has this changed in 2020?
FCG: I never had a “room of my own.” I have written many places, but mostly I write at my kitchen table. When I was younger, the only piece of furniture I owned was a kitchen table. When my daughters were young, I had to be in a place that was easily accessible to them so they could ask for snacks or help with homework or anything else. This year, for the first time in twenty years, both of my daughters are grown and out of the house, and I have discovered that I still write at the kitchen table. I keep thinking that I’ll set up a desk elsewhere, and maybe I will one day, but, until then, I am content here.
P: Do you have any writing rituals?
FCG: None. I understand that many writers do, and I respect it, but I decided a long time ago that any rituals I set up could easily become excuses for not writing. I write whenever I can, however I can. I wrote half my poems while breastfeeding a baby. I wrote most of my current novel in between grading papers in my cubicle-office. I write in the morning, afternoon, and evening. With coffee, water, or whiskey. When the dishes are done or when they aren’t. I don’t like to romanticize the process. Tonight I’m writing (at the kitchen table) with a glass of questionable white wine and an open bag of corn chips—now that I’m an adult woman who lives alone, I make my own rules.
P: How supportive is your local community for writers?
FCG: I think Albuquerque is a very supportive community in general. That said, I’m one of those hermit writers. I reach out now and again to folks I know and trust, here or elsewhere, but as long as I have those two or three people who can read my work well, I’m okay being alone with it.
P: What are some of your self-care practices?
FCG: Being deeply involved in politics and social movements makes me feel part of something bigger than myself. As exhausting as it can be, I never despair when I’m out walking the streets with other people who are equally invested in creating a more equitable and just world. In these post/mid-Covid times, I tend to leave the streets to my daughters and their generation, and I spend more time in a support role: sharing information, writing letters, and always being ready to give an emergency ride or to bail a protestor out of jail. In addition to this, I have two dogs and three cats who remind me every morning that no matter how depressed or anxious I may feel, they still need to eat. That always gets me out of bed. I garden, run, cook, and read—and, when things are really hard, I drive west, out into the desert, and I look at the sky: that long sweep of the galaxy reminding me that the universe is vast, and I am both tiny and beautiful and insignificant and a necessary part of it. Nothing is more calming.
P: What is your favorite book about writing?
FCG: Adrienne Rich’s What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics
P: Have you been able to write during this year of crisis as we face both COVID-19 and the long-overdue demands for social justice for BIPOC? If so, what are you working on?
FCG: When my college first shut down face-to-face classes in March of 2020, I thought, wow, I can actually finish my novel. Then I wrote nothing for months. I think it’s impossible to overstate the difficulty of the past year. Every week comes with fresh horrors, terrors, and possibilities, and it’s all I can do on many days just to keep, keeping on. Even my cat has decided to move into a cabinet and only come out to eat. I sit on the kitchen floor and talk to him through the door. I don’t try to get him to come out. I just say, “I feel you, compa.” Lately, however, I feel as if I’ve begun to find some ground to stand on. I’ve started to return to the novel and I’ve started to write poetry again for the first time in years. Mind you, the poetry is all about the apocalypse, but still.
P: What writers help you find solace in difficult times?
FCG: I’m not sure if I would call it solace, but some of the writers whose work keeps me writing and keeps me hoping for the future these days are Jesmyn Ward, Victor LaValle, Tommy Orange, Anna Burns, Marlon James, Alberto Chimal, and Carmen Maria Machado.
Be sure to check out our last episode of Plume: A Writer’s Podcast, featuring Felecia. And if you want to get her digital edition of Plume, sign up for our Patreon at the Plume Petite level (just $5!) by mid-November.
Felecia Caton Garcia was born in East Los Angeles, raised in rural Missouri, and currently lives, writes, gardens, and teaches college in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. Felecia’s poetry and fiction has been featured in magazines and journals including The Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, and Blue Mesa Review. Her full-length collection of poetry, Say That, was published by The University of New Mexico Press. An excerpt from her novel-in-progress can be found in A Larger Reality/Una realidad mas amplia: Speculative Fiction from the Bicultural Margins, a publication of The Mexicanx Initiative. In addition to writing, Felecia teaches American Studies, Chicanx Studies, Creative Writing, and English at Central New Mexico Community College where she is currently serving as the Presidential Fellow for Equity and Justice.