Ask The Author: MarÃa Elvira Vara TatÃ¡

From the March Issue, “La Muda y La Tonta,” by MarÃa Elvira Vara TÃ¡ta.

1. If your hair was a pendulum, what would you have hanging at the end?

A lie detector. That way, I wouldn’t be able to lie to myself. How many times do we do that? Filling in the gaps. Adding to the vacancy. Constructing a castle out of carrots. But then again … I would probably claim it was malfunctioning.

2. Where do you want your soul to go?

Wherever my deceased grandparents are — let’s hope they are all in the same place, or a bus ride away from each other, a place abundant in Nutella gelato, Willie Wonka Garden Style.

3. How do you want your funeral to come off?

No funeral, please. But since I probably won’t have a say in that, at least let’s have loud music, salsa dancing, and lots of homemade food. Have a cachapa con queso in my honor or a very fat burrito. Crying is allowed– although discouraged–as long as laughter prevails. Tell of the time I used to build stairs to facilitate the climb of Ratoncita (mine was a female, not a male) Perez to find my teeth, of when I got lost with my cousins in a rural part of Carupano, of relentlessly searching for hidden Christmas presents, of regaining mental-heart-soul peace with the simple pleasures of people and food in Spain, of the first time I read Junot Diaz, of the feeling of absolute bliss for belonging and finally achieving a dream in the States. Of being so very fortunate.

4. What secular thing do you do religiously?

I want to say write but I would be lying (and since I have a lie detector hanging from my pendulum hair …). Brush my teeth after every meal. Listen to NPR every morning. Talk to myself by myself. Read aloud, I can’t help it, once it gets good, I imagine how the author’s voice would sound and try to replicate it.

5.Â How much non-fiction do you put in your fiction? Do you keep track of it so that the fiction remains just enough to be called fiction?

Reality can’t manage to stay away from my head’s fantasy. I don’t keep track, but sometimes I recognize it, como un destello–quick, blinding and arresting. There’s always a trace, and as I get older, the injection is more prominent. It’s always fiction because the non-fiction parts transform itself. Mold to the pages, get dismantled and rearranged by the will of characters. There is only control during editing, and an insightful writer will tell you not to impose yourself during that process. The raw and wild core of the immediate act of writing is what should always prevail– incandescent, inviolate, and proprietor of its destiny.

6. What spell would you cast and on whom?

Only one? My brother always said, if he had to ask for one wish, it would be to have all the wishes he ever wanted. So, can I just cast a spell on myself to have infinite spells?