Leticia’s Creative Obsessions How Stories Shape Us

On this Spring Equinox, I am thinking a lot about the natural transitions into spring: the new growth, the warming during the day with still cool nights. The plants we nursed through last scorching summer and a few freezes are now starting to return and flourish. Look at our little strawberry buds!

This is also a time in which my husband and I are preparing our transition from Austin by preparing to sell our home, prepping the RV that will be our new home for the next two years (possibly more), transitioning from my job and into a full-time writing life. It’s exciting, nerve-wracking, invigorating, bittersweet, and I am booked up trying to spend time with all those I love and my beloved community here before our departure in June.

The biggest challenge right now is maintaining my wellbeing amidst the fray of all this transition. Saying goodbye to our home of 13 years and making a new home in the RV is my current project. Dreaming about the time I will have to cook and bake, write, read, hike and go on adventures with Ramiro and our pups, this feels very necessary right now. The second biggest challenge? Pairing down what books I will take with me!

Saying goodbye to Barrio Writers, Austin Bat Cave and the many communities I have been a part of as a teaching artists and administrator will be one of my biggest challenges. I began officially teaching elementary school as a bilingual teacher in 2009, but even before that I worked as a writing center tutor, in daycare and as a nanny. With over a decade of teaching experience under my belt, I look forward to doing more work as an independent teaching artist and the freedom that will bring, but I am also dealing emotionally with the natural ending of my time with these organizations that still feel hard to say goodbye to, especially when arts organizations and public education are under threat from our state and federal government and the future of access for our students is in such a precarious place.

But that is the nature of transition. Making space for others with new energy and fresh ideas to come in and make community spaces even better, and taking my energy elsewhere, even just to spend a good portion of it giving back to myself. I’m working on new several new projects, including revisions of stories and work to submit and to prepare for the release of my next book, The Remedy is the Disease, out next spring from Undertaker Books. There may be other work out this year and next; I can’t say more yet but hope to make some announcements soon. I also started venturing into writing the script for a fantasy graphic novel inspired by this call for submissions. You never know when a new idea is going to strike, and with everything being so hard in the US, a little whimsy feels good.

What I’m Reading

February and March I have been focusing on reading a lot of folklore and fantasy (for Folklore February) as preparation for my Reconnecting to the Body Through Fairy Tales class and because those are two comforting genres that have felt right with the turning of the season. The end of winter and the beginning of spring always make me think of fairy tales and folklore, though of course I read them throughout the year, so it made sense to concentrate on that right now. Here are some of my highlights and some stories and books I’m hoping to get to this month:

1. “The Folklore” by Taisia Kitaiskaia from her book The Nightgown and Other Poem is an excellent poem that encapsulates our relationships with storytelling and folklore.
2. Al-Kahf (الكهف)  by Beesan Odeh (text and audio component) is an excellent but dark folktale imagining from the point of view of a sea-jinn who is captured by a fisherman from Gaza who is desperate to save his ailing son.
3. White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link is one of my favorite of her books so far, and that is saying something since I love Kelly Link’s work and it has had a lot of influence over my own storytelling. This book is a collection of her reimagining of Grimm Fairytales but they are often very different from the originals. My favorite stories in the collection are “The White Road,” a post-apocalyptic fairy tale, and “The Game of Smash and Recovery,” a futuristic reimagining of Hansel and Gretel. There’s also this great interview with Kelly Link here that I think about a lot.
4. Thistefoot by Genna Rose Nethercott is an intergenerational tale about heritage, trauma and what can be gained from reconnecting with ancestral knowledge. In it, two semi-estranged siblings, Bellatine, a talented woodworker with hidden magical powers, and Isaac, an itinerant street-performer who can shapeshift into a mimic of anyone he meets, receive word that they must meet up again in New York as the recipients of a mysterious inheritance from their Yaga family line, a cottage on chicken legs. Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas’ ancestral home outside Kyiv, and following close behind is the Longshadow Man, a sinister figure who leaves chaos in his wake. The Yaga siblings decide to revive their parents traveling puppet theater show to make enough money to split the value of the inheritance, but what discover about their ancestral inheritance goes much deeper than either of them know. I am loving this book so far, especially as it centers eastern European Jewish folklore, and also look forward to reading another book with an introduction by Genna Rose Nethercott, Becoming Baba Yaga: Trickster, Feminist and Witch of the Woods by Kris Spisak (on Hoopla through your local library).
5. Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk is an anthology of indigenous stories from some of the best Native authors in North America. Many of the stories are frightening, with sinister creatures of indigenous folklore, while others speak to the darkness of colonialism’s violent legacy on Native communities. I am slowly working my way through this one, as I do all anthologies, and can’t wait to keep reading.

Here are some other books I plan to read that are fairy tale or folklore inspired:

• Happily by Sabrina Orah Marks 
• Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi
• Several works by T. Kingfisher 
• The Fox Wife by  Yangsze Choo
• The Bog Wife by Kay Chonister
• Smothermoss by Alisa Alering
• The Crocodile Bride by  Ashleigh Bell Pedersen
• Organ Meats by K Ming Chang

I’ve noticed that a lot of these books found there way to my reading list because I obviously gravitate to folklore or stories about people, mostly women with the ability to transform or change their bodies into creatures and other beings. I see this a lot in my first book, Las Criaturas, and it’s still something I’m exploring because I think these stories are so prevalent across cultures, and because the changeability and malleability of the body will always interest me.

In addition, I finally caught up on watching From, in my opinion one of the best shows streaming right now and I got to write about it for NightTide Magazine. To me, this show is not just a horror drama but also a dark fairy tale.

Writing Prompts about folklore and fairy tales

Fairytales and folktales often contain rules that the characters must abide by, or even break to go on their quest and achieve the life they want.

What are the rules of your body? These could be rules that were imposed upon you or that you have for your body. What happens when these rules are broken? Is there freedom gained, or something to discover?

What’s Happening with Leticia?

The fall was very busy with author events and readings and to be honest, with all of the transition in my life right now, I am exhausted and my capacity is limited until June. Because of that, I’ve decided to limit my spring author events, but I will be tabling and reading work at the 2025 Austin Indie Book Fair on Saturday, April 5th from 12pm-4pm at Radio Coffee East on Montopolis. If you’re in Austin, this will probably be the last time you can catch me outside of Austin Bat Cave events, so come by, say hi, and support your local indie authors and community!

I’m still lining up my events for 2025, but if you would like for me to participate in a reading or event or would like for me to lead a workshop for your community, comment or reach out on my website! After June, I can only participate in events in the cities we are visiting (more on that to come) or virtual events. I will be offering some virtual workshops and other creative opportunities once we are on the road. If you are outside of Austin/Texas and think I should connect with a particular independent bookstore, arts organization or collective, please let me know!

Call to Action: Opportunities for Solidarity and Care

Under this administration, it is challenging to find an equilibrium and a focus for our collective and individual actions (that is on purpose!) because so many rights and communities are under attack. If you, like me, are feeling stuck because you care about everyone affected by the stripping away of federal funding for healthcare and services for people with disabilities, public libraries, public education, and the outright assault on immigrants, trans and queer people and free speech dissent against genocide and Palestinian personhood, I refer you back to my post a few months ago called We Are Interconnected, as I stand by some of these suggestions while also knowing that some of these actions will need to escalate and organizing will need to become even more strategic. I am so proud of friends and community members who have joined or are organizing labor unions in their workplaces, as I truly believe union organizing will be one big way to strike back against our fascist government and hold our “leaders” accountable. No one is coming to save us. We have to ready to take the next steps to care for one another and make real change, even at small, incremental levels.

Here are some other local and international organizations that I continue to support either with labor or monetarily:

• Grassroots Leadership in Austin work on several fronts to combat incarceration of vulnerable community members, especially undocumented folks, refugees and migrants in Texas.
• ATX Free Fridges
• The Sameer Project working tirelessly to provide tents, food, water and other basic necessities to the people of Gaza who are once again being bombarded, killed and starved by the Israeli regime. They need our help more than ever!

Lastly, If you have a little extra to give to Austin Bat Cave in my name, that would be amazing! Our organization is not immune to the funding cuts and changes on the state and federal level, so your donation, however small, can help us continue to provide space for youth and students to write and share their voices in the greater Austin area.

What actions are you engaging in or organizations you suggest? I’d love to know in the comments! Or, just let me know what you’re reading!

Take care, each and every day ❤️

Leticia