We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Grisel Y. Acosta. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Grisel Y. below.
Grisel Y. , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
When I first moved to New York City from Chicago in 1999, I fully planned on becoming a public school educator, as New York had a reciprocity agreement with educators certified in Illinois. However, it quickly became clear that my path was directing me toward being part of the creative writing community in New York. After several attempts at teaching were thwarted by bureaucratic chaos, I found myself at a poetry reading in Harlem, where I placed literally all of my hope. That hope was well-placed. I met many poets who were part of or inspired by the Nuyorican movement, and they were incredibly supportive of me and my work. At one point, I found myself with no place to live, no steady work, and no friends in the area, but my positive experience at this poetry reading made me feel that I was onto something. I eventually found a job that could support a cheap apartment in New Jersey, and I quickly made friends in the poetry world. I placed a lot of faith in my dream of being a writer because I had received feedback from my professors and from my new poet friends that this is what I was meant to do. I stayed in the New York area and everything I’ve built since then started at that poetry reading in Harlem. I am so happy I made the decision to stay and become a writer instead of going back to Chicago defeated. Now, I am both a professor and writer, and it is perfect for me.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I started out as a creative in Chicago. My first creative love was visual art, and I initially went to college for that on a scholarship. However, I found I was priced out of the visual art world–I just couldn’t afford art supplies. I took some time off and eventually went back to school a bit unsure of where I’d land. I’d always written in journal and writing was kind of an obsession, but I thought of it as a hobby. However, at Columbia College Chicago, an arts and communications college, no less than three professors told me in one semester that I was a writer. This was the first time anyone had told me that. I decided to major in journalism (they did not have their creative writing major yet) and I graduated with honors in that field (with a minor in film). I worked at Extra Community Newspapers, a local bilingual newspaper at the time, for a few years and even won an award from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists for an article I wrote on Latinos marrying non-Latinos.
Even though I loved writing feature articles, I felt stuck in a career that didn’t reflect all of the talents I had fostered over the years. I went back to school and earned a Masters Degree in Education (M.Ed.) and graduated in 1999 from the University of Illinois at Chicago. As soon as I graduated, I moved to New York City, with the intent of teaching in its public school system. Instead, I became immersed in the creative writing world there and I ended up teaching at a community college in New Jersey (which I loved!) and teaching creative writing in the public schools as a teaching artist, through organizations like Teachers and Writers throughout Manhattan, and DreamYard in the Bronx. At one point, I had about five different jobs as an adjunct professor and contract teaching artist. It was hectic and I longed for more stability. I realized that in order to have a proper full time job, I would have to go back to school and earn my Ph.D. in literature. By this point, I had already begun to publish my poetry, but I knew I needed to progress. I applied to a Latino-centered program at the University of Texas-San Antonio, and got in. Soon after being accepted, I applied for a fellowship program funded by the Department of Agriculture, and I was welcomed as a fellow. Once that happened, I found that I could merge my talents as a journalist, educator, creative writer, and budding environmentalist into my dissertation. My work flourished during this time and I published a lot of poetry, articles, and had many conference presentations. It was a delight.
When I graduated in 2010, I immediately had several job offers back in New York, where I looked for employment at several community colleges. When I returned to the East Coast, I had to focus on establishing myself at the City University of New York so a lot of my initial focus was on scholarly work. One of my proudest moments was editing the anthology, Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity (Routledge, 2019), which has the scholarly and creative work of over 30 Latinas. After focusing on amplifying the voices of my Latina colleagues, I decided it was time to focus on my own creative voice, and that is when I solidified my manuscript, Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere (Get Fresh Books, 2021). This manuscript was a finalist for the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize, and it was supported by countless prominent authors. This work has taken me, literally, all over the country and I’m very proud of it. In it, I highlight my Cuban/Colombian background, my Chicago upbringing, and the things in my life that have allowed me to cope with racism, colorism within the Latino community, and sexism. As a queer, Afro-Latinx person who is a creative artist and writer, many folks, even within the communities I am a part of, have often seen me as an outsider, and my work attempts to describe how an outsider perspective is a superpower that actually influences mainstream cultures for the good.
I don’t know if I have an actual “brand” in that my identity is always shifting, especially as I age into different life stages. However, what I can consistently offer is a strong role as an educator, writer, and editor. Now, I am a creative writing editor at Chicana/Latina Studies Journal, and a poetry editor at WSQ Journal, and I’ve mentored folks who are interested in having their own creative writing careers. As the humanities are defunded and creative writing departments are being dissolved across the U.S., I am here to remind folks that the humanities and the arts serve an important role in our democracy. Some of us are here to tell stories and create art so that our fellow family members, friends, and colleagues can continue to develop important democratic tools, like empathy, self-reflection, and imagination skills that allow us to picture a better future. My writing has always worked to help folks see people and situations that we might miss; I attempt to have folks see the unseen so that we may stop, look, and learn from what we might have missed altogether. For example, some of my poems have addressed our border policies, how we view Colombian people and how our stories are often misguided about this incredible population, or how too often stories about Latinos that are not written by Latinos are not healthy or welcome. At the same time, I write a lot of science fiction, as well, and this work focuses on warnings related to technology and/or environmental issues. Feminist themes also prevail in my work.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Social media is a really complicated space and I do have very mixed feelings about it. However, I want to share a positive aspect of it. When I first started putting together a group of writers for the anthology I edited and contributed to, Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity, I reached out to specialized groups that were on Facebook. I knew I’d find additional contributors that way, but I had no idea how much support I’d receive. There are other places where we can post Calls for Papers (CFPs), but the community-centered energy of certain Facebook groups created a different feeling around the call I had for this anthology. Folks became genuinely excited about the idea of giving voice to Latinas who felt marginalized even within Latinidad. Within a few weeks, someone who knew an editor at Routledge reached out to me. She offered to put me in contact with the editor she knew, because she thought the idea for the anthology was great. I really didn’t think anything would come of it, but I followed her lead and reached out to her editor friend. I immediately got a response and was given clear instructions of how to submit my proposal. I did just that and the project was accepted right away. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it because having such quick support for my project seemed like something out of a fairytale. This did not make putting the anthology together easy–I still had to do all the work to make sure the anthology was worthwhile and clear for the reader–but that kind of support helped me see that I was on the right track and that there were folks who believed in my vision. If it weren’t for the connections I made on social media, this would have been a very different process.
As folks began to get to know my work on social media, I found that more and more folks wanted to stay connected. While Latina Outsiders seemed to start it all, my eventual work in conjunction with Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere, continued to grow my humble presence. Whether I met new friends at readings, or made connections through conference presentations, the virtual world and in-person world stayed working in unison and complemented each other. I do not like to look at screens all day, but the truth is my work would not have flourished as much as it has without social media. I strongly recommend following and/or joining social media groups that share your interests. I am proof that these connections work very well.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist for me…well, there are TWO things. The first thing is that it is so much fun! I adore being around artists. We find a way to work really hard and do it in such a celebratory way. Artists often get accused of not working as hard as the rest of the world, which I think is completely wrong. Artists work very hard because we often have to take on work to support our artistic endeavors, so it is like we’re working several jobs at once. That said, because we are obsessed with joy, beauty, and survival, we tend to make our work as fun as possible. We have wonderful senses of humor, we love to create beautiful spaces, we are killer at pot lucks, our musical taste is unparalleled, and we are excellent, inventive dancers and conversationalists. If you attend a party of artists, you might find an impromptu creative writing reading in a back room, or visual artists creating a mural in another room, or musicians jamming. In other words, we are literally creating while celebrating, oftentimes. This is exhilarating and I’ve loved these kinds of environments my entire life. Just because we are enjoying ourselves, doesn’t mean it isn’t hard work–it absolutely is. I believe all good work should have some level of joy and it makes me sad when folks don’t understand that possibility.
The other thing I adore about being a creative person is that we have vision and critical thinking built into our way of life. Artists are not ready to believe just anything because we can see multiple possibilities for the world, so our minds are democratic by default. We are ready to try and understand people who are very different from us. We are ready to try and find ways of working with people who are very different from us. We are ready to blend different visions together. It is really difficult work, but when you can make it happen, expect stunning harmonies, expect a surprising quilt, expect a hybrid text you might have thought impossible to create. I adore this way of life and I hope more people become open to it.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://grito.org/dr.-grisel-y.-acosta.html
- Instagram: grisel_y_acosta
- Facebook: grisel.y.acosta
Image Credits
For the headshot of me in front of the George Washington Bridge, the photographer is David Flores. All other photos or shots are either shot by me or were created by me.