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 Rubén Degollado on Tuesdays, Feb 18, 25, & March 4, 11, 18, & 25, 2024, 6:30-8:30pm CST, via Zoom, for his workshop: Story Core. In this six-session generative virtual workshop, participants will begin by exploring examples of the core elements of setting, plot, and characters working well together to create a cohesive storyline. We will do pre-writing exercises focused on drafting complicated characters who connect to the reader’s emotions and make them want to keep reading. Then we will move through a series of setting exercises that build the details of place and transport the reader there. This generative work will prime writers for creating memorable stories with believable characters navigating the worlds they inhabit. This course is open to fiction writers of all backgrounds and skill levels, 18+.
Describe your first writing desk. How is it different (or not) from your current writing desk?
My first desk as a “professional” writer—one who writes to be published—was not actually a desk, but a table in a coffee shop. At the time, my wife and I were living with relatives and one summer, and I went to a coffee shop every day. Once we had our own house, as a birthday present, my wife bought me an antique typewriter desk. It has water stains and scratches and chips, but it has so much character. Its best feature is a desktop with springed hinges made to store a manual typewriter. Even if I don’t always use my manual typewriter, I think of that Royal “Magic Margin” typewriter nestled inside as the “heart” of my desk, a writing companion which has been with me through three books and numerous short stories. It is the desk you see here.
Do you have any habits or routines that you follow before writing?
I start either by journaling prayers of praise and intercession or by reading a “Liturgy for Fiction Writers,” by Douglas Kaine McKelvey from Every Moment Holy, a collection of public corporate prayers for everyday life. My favorite line from this book is: “Take these my small offerings: my pen, my paper, my words, my willingness to be still and present.” The other thing I must do is clear off my desk top, even if it means throwing things into drawers! It helps me clear my mind from distractions.
“I write about the people of the Río Grande Valley of Texas and the intersection of its belief traditions and culture and the persistent presence of grace. Though there are many great writers who have written about this piece of Texas, I never quite found the stories I wanted to read about its people for myself, so I decided to write them.”
What is the one piece of writing advice that you value most?
Maybe it’s not so much as writing advice, but the words of Toni Morrison have always guided me: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” I write about the people of the Río Grande Valley of Texas and the intersection of its belief traditions and culture and the persistent presence of grace. Though there are many great writers who have written about this piece of Texas, I never quite found the stories I wanted to read about its people for myself, so I decided to write them.
What theme or symbol often emerges in your work? Why are you drawn to this theme/symbol?
I am fascinated by family, how they hold together and what threatens to tear them apart: grief and grudges, jealousy and curses. Though I love an epic, a story about societal outsiders, a bildungsroman, I always come back to family in my work, whether that be a found family of gang members in my first book, a large family in my second beset by curses, or a small one holding it together after the death of their vagabond musician patriarch in my current project.
Who are your heroes in real life? What do you admire most about them?
This is an easy one for me. It is my parents. My father taught me how to be a man who works hard and throws himself into everything he does, providing for his family and making the world a better place through his labor. My mother always had dreams of an education for me and so she worked extra hours as a nurse to put me through college. That combination of hard work and the value of education instilled in me from an early age made me the man and writer I am today. I admire their love, their drive, and ganas. I owe it all to them.
What is your motto? Does it also apply to your writing?
My father taught me a dicho: “El que es gallo donde quiera canta.” In English the words roughly mean, “One who is a rooster will sing anywhere.” In Mexican culture, a gallo (rooster) with their plumage, their strutting, their persistent crowing before anyone is awake, is a symbol of pride. At the heart of it, the saying means that with a belief in who you’ve been made to be, you will excel wherever you find yourself.
What are some misconceptions about being a writer that you can discredit?
The biggest misconception is that you are an abject failure if you do not publish your first book by the time you’re thirty-five. When you see awards winners in magazines, and those announcing prestigious fellowships online, you see younger writers disproportionately represented and it’s easy to believe this. I have yet to see an award specifically for writers who are fifty or older. I believed this misconception for many years and in fact, when I wrote my first book and didn’t get it published after decades, I gave up on being published because I thought I was too old. Sounds foolish, right? But I guarantee you there are many writers who believe as I did. Online, at readings, and book festivals, I hear from them all the time. However, I’m here to tell you: this is a myth. After nearly twenty years of a novel manuscript collecting dust, I sent it out. One. More. Time. And at the tender age of forty-eight, I was a debut author. My second book was published just a few years later, and now I have a third that has been sold. You are never too old to write and pursue a career in publishing.
Rubén Degollado’s work has appeared or been featured in Texas Highways, Literary Hub, CRAFT, The Common, The Rumpus, Image Journal, and elsewhere. His first novel Throw won the Texas Institute of Letters Best Young Adult book for 2020. His debut literary novel The Family Izquierdo is a New York Times Book Review editor’s choice and a long list title for the PEN/Faulkner and Mark Twain American Voice in Literature awards. Rubén lives and writes along the southern border, in the Río Grande Valley of Texas.
