On Finding Home
with Jennifer Maritza McCauley author of 'When Trying to Return Home': Stories
#NuevasPaginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So give please spread the news so we can reach more readers and continue the love/support of Latine literature!
How does it work?!
Here’s the deal, I came up with a set of casual/random/fun questions to ask each Hispanic/Latinx/e author, I interview. If you are new here don’t forget to check out all the other amazing interviews! We also have a great line-up of guest authors coming up so make sure you don’t miss an issue by subscribing now!
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Hey Heyyy Book Franz!
Happy March! A friendly reminder that this coming Thursday, March 9th at 6:30 pm ET, I will be chatting with Malka Older (happy book birthday to The Mimicking of Known Successes) and C.L. Polk via Loyalty Books. Both authors have new books out and both books feature SAPPHIC characters and both have a little romance in them (yelling in sapphic love)!!!! So you know we’ll be getting into all things science/fantasy fiction and writing about lady-loving in space. Register here to join us.
For #LupitasBookClub Besties:
I am still working on discussion questions for WHEN WE WERE SISTERS by Fatimah Asghar so stay tuned. I promise those are coming!
If you are wondering what the next book is….well because you all have been so sweet and patient with me, I am happy to share that our next book will be…………
THE CONSEQUENCES by Manuel Muñoz. It recently was announced as a 2023 finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and one lovely reader on TikTok left me a comment on one of my videos long ago that they hoped I would consider reading it because it’s a Latine Queer book that more people need to know about. So we are going to read it together!!! Grab a copy of the book and we’ll start our reading Monday, March 20th.
Before we jump into our special guest author for today, I wanted to share a few thoughts about her amazing short story collection - When Trying to Return Home. It was one I sat with and had to process each individual story because it felt like there was so much living between the lines. For me what jumped out immediately from the beginning story was the look deep at a mother’s love, how it can appear to be protective and unconditional but how instead it might be received as possessive and self-serving. How it can suffocate when it means to nurture and I knew from that first story, each character was going to battle varying complexities. I was not disappointed and enjoyed each story. I even made a TikTok for this one because the one-liners in this collection felt like gut punches! Anyways, this one was very good and I am still thinking about certain characters from certain stories………
So without further ado, our very special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is……Jennifer Maritza McCauley author of When Trying to Return Home: Stories!
Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?
This picture is taken in my office in my home in League City, Texas. The space is decorated with African and indigenous art, and pictures of Black and Brown heroes who inspire me as I write. My husband knew I loved Toni Morrison, my favorite author, so for my birthday he gave me a painting of her to hang in my special space. She glows behind my desk and goads me to keep writing!
Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book.
When I was a kid I wasn’t taught Black or Brown writers in school so I sought them out on my own. I especially cared deeply about Afro-Latine experiences since I’m Black and Puerto Rican, so I sought out writers like Mayra Santos-Febres and Nancy Morejón for inspiration. I always told myself if I wrote a book, I would write about Black American and Afro-Latine lives. That way if some young Black Latina girl ever was looking to see herself represented in literature my book could be one of the texts she finds. I’ve been really excited to see readers from so many different backgrounds connect with the book. I’m just happy to have my little collection out there, finding new readers.
What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?
Two of the themes in the collection are belonging and finding your home in people or places. I connect with this because I’ve lived or spend extensive time in many locations (Pittsburgh, Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico, Nashville) and as I bounced around I kept trying to discover what really constituted home for me. I was also interested in where I belonged, who were my people, where should I lay my roots. In this collection, many characters are leaving or coming back to a place they once called home and wondering how they can find themselves in their fresh environs. I realized, finally, that home is with people and home is, most importantly, found within yourself. Some of my characters discover this too.
If a book was home, where would your home be?
Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. It’s so rich and full and populated by characters who feel like my friends and my family. This book is definitely influential to me.
If your book was a famous musician who would it be?
Jamila Woods. The poet draws on her Black heritage in her music and the legacies of her ancestors. She’s socially conscious, she is both edgy and tender. This book draws on Blackness and poetry, and it has a bit of a bite but tries to balance that edge with love.
What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?
Sancocho. The book has a mix of cultures, languages, influences and people.
In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?
Having limited access to Latinx/e literature when I was a child made me seek it out as a teenager and an adult. It made me want to find my mother’s culture in books and to uncover the history of my roots. Because of Latinx/e writers like Mayra Santos-Febres and Willie Perdomo, for example, I feel comfortable using Spanish, English and vernacular, the voices I heard growing up, in my work.
Where can readers keep up with your work?
Website: http://www.jennifermaritzamccauley.com
Instagram: @Maritza4770
Thank you to Jennifer for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!
Jennifer Maritza McCauley is a writer, poet, and university professor. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kimbilio, CantoMundo and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. She holds an MFA from Florida International University and a PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Missouri. The author of the cross-genre collection SCAR ON/SCAR OFF, she is an assistant professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.
Synopsis for When Trying to Return Home from the Bookshop website:
A dazzling debut collection spanning a century of Black American and Afro-Latino life in Puerto Rico, Pittsburgh, Louisiana, Miami, and beyond--and an evocative meditation on belonging, the meaning of home, and how we secure freedom on our own terms
Profoundly moving and powerful, the stories in When Trying to Return Home dig deeply into the question of belonging. A young woman is torn between overwhelming love for her mother and the need to break free from her damaging influence during a desperate and disastrous attempt to rescue her brother from foster care. A man, his wife, and his mistress each confront the borders separating love and hate, obligation and longing, on the eve of a flight to San Juan. A college student grapples with the space between chivalry and machismo in a tense encounter involving a nun. And in 1930s Louisiana, a woman attempting to find a place to call her own chances upon an old friend at a bar and must reckon with her troubled past.
Forming a web of desires and consequences that span generations, McCauley's Black American and Afro-Puerto Rican characters remind us that these voices have always been here, occupying the very center of American life--even if we haven't always been willing to listen.
This sounds incredible- I’ve been itching for a good short story collection!
I'm so excited you've chosen The Consequences. I just read it and saw Manuel Muñoz read at the university where I work. Can't wait for the book club.