Interviews
I saw how changing the stories we live by can in fact change our perceptions of the world. The very idea that no story is final—be it the story of one’s own self, or the story of a nation—is ultimately something in which I find great hope.
Clinical care provides the subject matter for many of my poems, and some of the themes I explore in them – for example, empathy, compassion, uncertainty, loss, anger, and guilt – have driven a process of self-discovery that I think has made me a better doctor.
Fiction allows me to further portray realities from perspectives outside the majority, not just at the level of my lived experience but in terms of a broad range of possible trans, BIPOC, immigrant, and disabled experiences.
I rarely know how a story ends until I get there. A story has its own life, and I am immersed in it and on the margins at the same time, both participant and recorder.
In honor of BLR’s 20th anniversary, we’ve invited editors past and present to offer reflections on the BLR’s founding and its evolution over two decades of publishing.
I have loved the natural world since I was a small child and it is my inability to see it accurately that pains me.
Almost all of my work takes place in the realm of the hybrid… I myself am just a regular person and artist who finds rules very difficult to adhere to.
English has now become my primary language, although I experience it as a syllabic language, which I attribute to my brain being wired for Spanish.