On Mermaids And The Ocean
with Natalia Sylvester author of ‘Breathe And Count Back From Ten’
#NuevasPaginasconLupita is a space that is both an archive and resource aimed to "spotlight" Hispanic/Latinx/e authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to new and/or old favorite Hispanic/Latinx/e authors and their books! So give this & every post a share to help us reach more readers!
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Here’s the deal, I came up with a set of casual/random/funny questions to ask each Hispanic/Latinx/e author, I interview. For now, the questions will all be the same but maybe in the future I’ll launch this into more specific questions to the author or maybe I’ll turn this series into a mini-podcast, or maybe……well, you get it! The possibilities are endless.
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Hey Heyyy Book Franz!
SURPRISE and Happy Friday! Don’t worry it’s not Tuesday! I am just sliding into your inbox for a second time this week because I didn’t want the week to end without celebrating this author and book, which hit all bookstores and libraries this past Tuesday. I also wanted to plug a virtual book conversation (Monday, May 16th At 6 PM ET) I’ll be having with this author hosted by my good friends at @duendedistrict & @wordisdiversity because I know it’s going to be an amazing time and I don’t want you all to miss out!
So read the interview below & then register to join our bookish convo here. With that said I am super excited to welcome Natalia Sylvester author of ‘Breathe And Count Back From Ten’!!!
Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?
My husband took this photo at the pool in my grandmother’s townhouse complex. I was 6-weeks post-hip replacement surgery that day, and I’d had a doctor’s appointment that morning clearing me to go swimming again. We literally went from the doctor’s office to the pool; I was so excited to get back in the water. My book is about a Peruvian American teen with hip dysplasia who navigates countless surgeries and longs to become a professional mermaid, so I share these things in common with Vero, my protagonist. I thought it’d be fun to recreate the cover because I see myself in the artwork—Vero’s scars are the same as mine because I sent pictures of them as a reference to the design team.
When I first began writing it, I never would have imagined that I’d be having yet another surgery just before the book’s release. Life’s timing is weird like that. But the freedom I’ve always felt in the water is what inspired this book. It’s where my body feels most at home and the world fades away. Growing up, it was where I felt safest because when I was swimming, nobody could see my scars or how I limped. To take this picture of myself underwater—specifically to share my body and my scars with the world—was so meaningful because the younger version of me always wanted to hide these parts of myself. Today, all I want to do is share them in hopes that no other person ever has to feel that same shame.
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 my mom was clearing out her attic years ago, she gave me a file full of my important documents. Included were my medical records detailing all my surgeries growing up, and my Peruvian passport. It showed that as a baby, my mom had brought me to the US (years before we actually moved here) from Peru in order to receive care for my hip dysplasia. Seeing those two things really helped me understand something I’d struggled to articulate for years: that I can’t separate any parts of my identity: I’m a disabled, Latina immigrant and so much more.
But I also grew up really fascinated by mermaids, especially the story of the Little Mermaid (in all its iterations). She so badly longs to live on land that she loses her voice for a chance at having legs. I think of Breathe and Count Back from Ten as a reverse retelling of that story: Vero so badly wants to belong in the only home she remembers (Central Florida) that she’d give anything to get a tail and become a professional mermaid…but she has to find her voice to do so. I’d long felt there was something about “classic” stories and myths that left me unsettled, but I couldn’t quite articulate why.
Then I read Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc and it was completely illuminating. In it, Leduc dives into the ways fairy tales are rooted in (and perpetuate) ableism. They tend to have these very narrow definitions of how bodies can exist, and anyone living outside of that is vilified. And again, I thought of my own body, and bodies like mine, vilified not just for being disabled but being brown and labeled “outsider” as immigrants. I wanted to address that without having the book be about that. It’s there, but I really see it as being about Vero rewriting her own story, about realizing she doesn’t need fairy tales that don’t serve her.
What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?
The idea of feeling out of place. That it's in the name—hip dysplasia—and that I’ve had it since birth and have been an immigrant nearly all of my life. I was interested in exploring the literal and figurative manifestations of this for Vero, and how they’re connected. She’s displaced both inside and outside of her body.
The second is the theme of language and narratives we absorb and internalize when they’re actually deeply harmful. There are mermaid myths throughout the story and in each chapter heading, terms that Vero defines in her own words. The fact that she questions, then retells and redefines things on her terms really resonated with me because I don’t think we can ever truly create meaningful change, in big and small ways, until we allow ourselves to imagine it being possible.
If a book was home, where would your home be?
By the ocean. I was initially going to say “near any body of water” but it’s the ocean that’s always felt like home.
If your book was a famous musician who would it be?
I thought so much of Bebe while writing this book, specifically her Pafuera Telarañas
album. There are songs of rage in there, songs of tenderness and empowerment and comfort and fun. Vero contains all of these things, and I loved getting to write all these emotions co-existing without them canceling one another out.
What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?
Is it weird to say a freshly peeled, cold orange? It’s my favorite thing to eat when I’m by an ocean. I love its crispness and juiciness, the way it quenches you with sweetness (but not overwhelmingly so). I wanted that for this book: for it to feel comforting and safe but also sweet.
In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?
I grew up with so little access to Latine literature that I didn’t start writing myself into stories until I was an adult. So in some ways, and especially with Breathe and Count Back to Ten, I’ve been writing to fill what I felt was a void. There’s so few published books by and about disabled characters, especially disabled BIPOC. And the thing is, even knowing our stories are necessary, there were huge periods of time when I was writing this book and was completely convinced it was no good, that no one would ever want to read it, let alone connect with it—so powerful are the negative effects of not seeing yourself reflected in books.
You begin to believe it’s because your stories don’t matter. If that’s how I felt, as someone writing her fourth (and contracted) book, I can’t imagine how much harder it is for someone just starting out to break through those doubts. So I try to write from a place of unabashed celebration of self. I try not to write in reaction to the systems that have gatekept our stories and instead think of an “us” that needs them. That, along with the Latine books that I do see myself in, help me draw strength and inspiration in those moments of self-doubt.
Where can readers keep up with your work?
I’m @NataliaSylv on Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok, and my website is nataliasylvester.com. Thanks so much for having me, Lupita!
A huge thank you to Natalia Sylvester 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) of their book #SupportLatinxLit!
Author Bio from her website:
Natalia Sylvester is the award-winning author of several novels for adults and young adults. CHASING THE SUN was named the Best Debut Book of 2014 by Latinidad and EVERYONE KNOWS YOU GO HOME won an International Latino Book Award and the 2018 Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters.
Natalia's debut YA novel, RUNNING, was a 2020 Junior Library Guild Selection, and her next novel for young adults, BREATHE AND COUNT BACK FROM TEN, is forthcoming in May 2022 from Clarion Books/HarperCollins. A MALETA FULL OF TREASURES, Natalia's first picture book (illustrated by Juana Medina), will be published by Dial Books in 2024.
Natalia's non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, Bustle, Catapult, Electric Literature, Latina magazine, and McSweeney's Publishing. Her essays have been anthologized in collections such as A MAP IS ONLY ONE STORY and A MEASURE OF BELONGING: WRITERS OF COLOR ON THE NEW AMERICAN SOUTH.
Born in Lima, Peru, Natalia came to the US at age four and grew up in Florida and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. She received a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Miami, was a 2021 Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and was formerly a faculty member at the Mile-High MFA program at Regis University.
Synopsis for Breathe And Count Back From Ten Bookshop website:
In this gorgeously written and authentic novel, Verónica, a Peruvian-American teen with hip dysplasia, auditions to become a mermaid at a Central Florida theme park in the summer before her senior year, all while figuring out her first real boyfriend and how to feel safe in her own body.
Verónica has had many surgeries to manage her disability. The best form of rehabilitation is swimming, so she spends hours in the pool, but not just to strengthen her body.
Her Florida town is home to Mermaid Cove, a kitschy underwater attraction where professional mermaids perform in giant tanks . . . and Verónica wants to audition. But her conservative Peruvian parents would never go for it. And they definitely would never let her be with Alex, her cute new neighbor.
She decides it's time to seize control of her life, but her plans come crashing down when she learns her parents have been hiding the truth from her--the truth about her own body.
The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:
REQUEST that your local library carry a copy
PURCHASE a copy of a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).
SHOUT about the book on any social media platform or to your friends and family!
SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.
REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!
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