Today we’d like to introduce you to Ire’ne Lara Silva.
Hi Ire’ne; we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started writing as a child, though I probably wouldn’t publicly claim anything I wrote before I was 19 and in college. I’ve lived in Austin since 1998. I moved here thinking I’d return to college and finish my bachelor’s. That never happened. I spent ten years working for the state and then 15 more for the county. During that time, I took care of my mother until she passed away in 2001, spent some time taking care of my father in 2006 after quadruple bypass surgery, and then spent almost twenty years taking care of my youngest brother, eventually adopting him in 2017 after his leg was amputated due to diabetic complications. I’ve been lost since he passed away in the summer of 2022. I became an insulin-dependent diabetic myself in 2008. For many years (1998-2001 and 2004-2018) I worked multiple jobs, from retail to restaurants to caregiver to laundromat worker to nonprofit coordinator to IRS mail sorter to housekeeper. I published my first book of poetry in 2010 (Furia, Mouthfeel Press). I started teaching writing workshops and editing/consulting work on top of my full-time and part-time jobs. I’m now a couple of years away from retiring from my job with Travis County and looking forward to being a full-time writer and speaker. I’ve published four poetry collections, a couple of chapbooks, and a short story collection. I’m currently finishing up a new collection of poetry and a new collection of short stories. The next half-year is packed with travel and readings everywhere from Texas to Chicago to LA to New Mexico, and who knows what will be next.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road was very, very rough in many places along the way. Caregiving and financial concerns were incredibly stressful for more than a couple of decades. I spent nine years trying to get my first book of poetry published. And fifteen years passed between the first time I took a short story to a writing workshop for feedback and when I first held my book of short stories in my hand. I have had very few periods free for writing. I learned to write during lunch hours, bus rides, and waiting in lines at the grocery store. I’d fall asleep while writing all the time. I sought writing classes and groups wherever I could, but they were only sometimes supportive. My youngest brother was the greatest and most understanding supporter of my writing. I swear, sometimes I felt like he understood what I was trying to do better than I did. Even a month before he passed, he offered essential feedback for a poem I wrote mourning the loss of life in Uvalde at Robb Elementary School. His artwork is on the cover of most of my books.
Thanks for sharing that. So, you could tell us a bit more about your work.
I started publishing poetry in literary magazines and journals in 1998. I expected to write in fewer genres than I do. Short stories were where I started when I was a child, but it wasn’t until 2013 that I published my first collection with Aunt Lute Books, who’d published literary heroes of mine like Gloria Anzaldua, Audre Lorde, and Gayl Jones. Still, I didn’t publish my first book of poetry until 2010 with Mouthfeel Press, which has published an incredible number of border poets. I started traveling widely across the U.S. in 2014 to read my work and visit university/college classes. My second book of poetry, blood sugar canto, in 2016, was an attempt to sort out my feelings and experiences around being diabetic and how it affected not just me but also my family, my communities, and our society. In 2017, with the poet Dan Vera, I edited an anthology of poetry, essays, and hybrid work that celebrated the influence of Gloria Anzaldua on creative writers. Aunt Lute Books published this collection as Imaniman: Writing in the Anzalduan Borderlands. In 2019, my third poetry collection, Cuicacalli/House of Song, focused on indigeneity, culture, and the history of Texas and the borderlands.
The beginning of the pandemic severely curtailed my ability to travel. In 2020, I did something I’d never expected to do. Before then, I told everyone that my essays were against my will. But I decided to pitch an essay/article to Texas Highways Magazine. That essay received a lot of attention and received a 2021 Shrake Award for Short NonFiction from the Texas Institute of Letters. I signed a contract to be a Writer At Large for the magazine from 2021-2023 and have been writing articles for them since. 2021 also brought the publication of my fourth poetry collection, FirstPoems, which reprints my 2001 chapbooks and Furia, and the limited edition bilingual publication of my short story, Hibiscus Tacos.
What are your plans for the future?Every day, I’m counting down to retirement. I absolutely can’t wait. Meanwhile, I’m finishing up a new poetry collection, the eaters of flowers, which deals with grief, loss, mortality, and building a new life after my brother’s passing. I’m also finishing up my second collection of short stories, the light of your body, which focuses on desire, spirit, creativity, and healing the wounds of the Conquest. I’ve just found out that the rent on my apartment isn’t going up again, so I’m in Austin for another year and probably until I retire. Still, affordability issues will have me looking for a home elsewhere afterward. Meanwhile, I’m concentrating on learning to rest and focus on my health.
Pricing:
- Books $15-18
- Workshops offered to groups $75/hour/person
- Readings $500-2500
Contact Info:
- Website: www.irenelarasilva.wordpress.com
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/irenelarasilva
