'King of Cuba' Author Cristina Garcia Appears as Keynote at Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference

Cristina Garcia, author of six novels, was the keynote speaker at the the fourth annual Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference, which took place Saturday, Oct. 3 at the New School. The full-day event was flooded with creative workshops, networking opportunities and a plethora of writers, agents and editors.

The successful summit introduced attendees to back-to-back panels, workshops and compelling sessions. "Craft Workshop for Adult Books," "Craft Workshop for Children's Books," "Writing for Children and Young Adults," "Magazines and Literary Journals" and a "Pitch Slam" were some of the panels on the menu for participants. These sessions were led by successful writers, including author and New School Creative Writing Program Chair Luis Jaramillo ("The Doctor's Wife"), Meg Medina ("Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass"), Suzan Colón ("Beach Glass"), Natalia Sylvester ("Chasing the Sun"), Anjanette Delgado ("The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho"), Mireya Navarro ("Stepdog"), Ana Sofia Pelaez ("The Cuban Tale") Daniel Jose Older ("Shadowshaper") and many others. The talented authors explored motivations, embracing important issues, magnifying diverse voices and much more.

Beyond being educated on structure and development, long-term workflow, masterfully setting a scene, managing expectations as a new writer and constructing the perfect pitch, attendees learned a great deal about important steps toward being published. Millicent Bennett from Simon & Schuster, Anna Bloom from Scholastic, Adriana Dominguez from Full Circle Literary, Jessica Escheverria from Lee & Low Books, Stacy Whitman from Tu Books and Nancy Mercado from Scholastic Press and others provided one-on-one sessions to aspiring writers.

Cristina Garcia ("King of Cuba"), who appeared toward the end of the day, shared details about her early life growing up in a household where facts didn't get in the way of a good story, the ebb and flow of publishing, her journey as a writer and her inspirations. She began her speech by reading an essay she wrote, "Exile in the Imagination," which explored developing her own Cuban identity through writing and embracing hyphenations as a part of her own character. She spoke about a desire for belongingness, negotiating her identity, and moving from journalism to fiction.

"While I was in journalism, all these incredible stories I was coming across -- I felt they needed much larger treatment, much more nuance, not just the general 'is it good or is it bad?' that's common in a binary framework of news and public discourse about Cuba, so I began writing poetry in secret. And that poetry led, more in secret, to bits of story that unfolded. I would pack these poems, and then I'd start unpacking it.

"I said, 'ah, this could be an interesting character, so I started writing a few scenes here and there, but that kind of got a little out of control. I took a UCLA extension class, developed a little bit more...before I knew it, I had 150 pages of what ended up becoming 'Dreaming in Cuban,' but I wouldn't allow myself to think that I was writing a novel. I think, if I thought I'd actually rolled up my sleeves to write a novel, would have just buried myself alive or something. This would have been absolutely terrifying for me after writing nothing longer than 2000 words."

Garcia later submitted a portion of what would become "Dreaming in Cuba" to a workshop in New York City. The poor reception almost made her give up on her writing. However, she'd decided to submit the same except to another workshop, which was led by writer Russell Banks, and Banks not only loved it, but he sent her manuscript to his agent. Twenty-five years later, her relationship with her agent has outlasted two marriages.

The author shared a bit about her practice of reading poetry before writing, creating reliability through specificity, staying close to other reader-writers, working endlessly on developing her craft, being a voracious reader, and being forgiving of herself for a long time at the beginning of the writing process and then being unsparing during later drafts.

Nora de Hoyos Comstock, Founder and former President/CEO, literary agent Adriana Dominguez, and author and editorial consultant Marcela Landres organized the annual conference, which will return in 2016.