The Writer’s Desk features the desks and writing practices of Gemini Ink faculty, visiting authors, teaching artists, volunteers, students, interns, staff, partners and more. Receive new posts in your inbox by subscribing to our newsletter at bit.ly/geminiinknewsletter.
Join Amalia Ortiz on Tuesdays, Aug 6 & 13, 20 & 27, 2023, 6:30-8:30pm CST, in person at Gemini Ink and on Zoom, for her workshop: Raising the Stakes: Fictionalizing Your Stories for the Stage. This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+ and will cover dialogue, characters, and performance. Participants will explore these elements and use them to share a dramatic reading of works-in-progress.
Welcome, Amalia! It’s fantastic to have you here on the blog today. Writers are often creatures of habit, so we’re curious, has your preferred place to write changed over the years?
I take notes in many notebooks throughout the day, but I sit down to transcribe, write, and edit on my laptop on an orange sofa in my living room. There is a dent right in the middle from where I sit every night. I had a yellow sofa during graduate school, which was also dented from my routine use, and also caused sciatica. These days, I use a lower back pillow and work stretching into my process.
What is the one piece of writing advice that you value most?
“read, read, read, and write, write, write”
Around 2002, I was considering applying for graduate school, and a writer I respect told me to “read, read, read, and write, write, write” if I didn’t end up applying. I did eventually get the MFA many years later, but even after grad school, it’s solid advice. There are no shortcuts. Just keep reading and writing. That same person also told me “writers are not gurus” which takes pressure off of trying to be too deep or trying to change anyone’s life with my writing. It also made me very skeptical of literary writers who promise anything more than good stories or cultural criticism. I have a therapist, and I’m not interested in joining a cult.
Is there anything you’ve been listening to lately—an interesting podcast, a song list, a book?
I challenged my bandmates, Las Hijas de la Madre, to read All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hooks this summer. At a recent rehearsal, we all listened to an audio recording of chapter 2, “Justice: Childhood Love Lessons” and discussed it. (Check it out for free at The Anarchist Audio Library on YouTube.) We’re hoping it inspires a love song. We’re a punk band and believe that love is a revolutionary action.
What is your motto? Does it also apply to your writing?
It might sound cliche, but “¡Si, se puede!” It is my “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” When it comes to writing, I often accept assignments to write on a theme with no initial idea of what I have to say on that theme, but I can’t waste time on fear or doubt. “¡Si, se puede!” Everyone has something to say on any topic if you put enough energy into research and reflection. Don’t doubt yourself. Just do the work.
What are some misconceptions about being a writer that you can discredit?
Writers’ block is not real. I learned that when I worked at The San Antonio Current in the early 2000s. When you have an assignment, and that’s how you get paid, you just sit down and write the thing if you want to eat. You don’t have to love the topic.
“Writers’ block” is just not giving yourself an assignment or not sticking to deadlines you set for yourself.
For decades, I have made lists of ideas and topics I want to write about “someday,” and I’m always fighting for time to write those things. When I get time, I look at the list, pick one and go. If you are sitting around staring at a screen, you haven’t given yourself a clear enough assignment, and there are plenty of prompt generators in the world now to help you pick a topic if you don’t have your own list. If you are staring at a blank screen you are probably waiting for the “perfect” idea, and it will never come. I write as if I am always on assignment and keep my deadlines unless something truly unforeseen derails me.
What is your next project?
I have a play I wrote in graduate school that I put to the side to focus on my masters thesis which became my second book, The Canción Cannibal Cabaret. This summer, I’m working with my band, Las Hijas de la Madre, on a new manuscript focused on women and punk as a part of a Democratizing Racial Justice Artist Residency funded by the Mellon Foundation. But I’m really hoping to find time to revisit that play and Frankenstein two previous drafts into a new version. It’s tentatively called Pass It On, and it’s about a family of Tejanas and a chain letter.
If people want to learn more about your work, where should they go?
I’m not the most aggressive self-promoter, but my husband and bandmates are great about tagging me on social media and passing event info along.
Facebook: Amalia @amaliao
The Canción Cannibal Cabaret @LaMadreValiente
Instagram: Amalia @amalia.o
Las Hijas de la Madre @las_hijas_de_la_madre
The Canción Cannibal Cabaret @the_cancion_cannibal_cabaret
I need a new website, but for now, the city’s Get Creative San Antonio site is a great place for me to share video, audio and other info for people who want to know what I’m about.
Amalia Ortiz appeared on three seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO. She was awarded the 2020 American Book Award for Oral Literature from the Before Columbus Foundation for The Canción Cannibal Cabaret (Aztlan Libre Press, 2019). NBC Latino listed her book, Rant. Chant. Chisme (Wings Press, 2015). among “10 Great Latino Books of 2015.” She won an Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Grant, a residency at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the 2015 Writers’ League of Texas Poetry Discovery Prize, and the 2018 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant to film videos for her latest book, The Canción Cannibal Cabaret. Amalia received a BA in Theatre from UIW and an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She is the Director of Theatre at SAY Sí, a year-round afterschool arts program where she facilitates the creation of original theatre productions written by middle and high school students.
