Isabel Lemus Kristensen was one of our 2024 Digital Residents. As a part of this program, we do Q&As with our residents to feature them, their work, and their words. See our Q&A with Isabel below, and explore more Spotlights here.
TSW: Tell us about your work, writing, or project. What are you writing these days? How is your work changing, and how is it changing you?
Isabel Lemus Kristensen: I’ve been writing a lot about family and community and interconnectedness. Being able to process it in my writing and artwork has shaped how I think about the world and how I approach my everyday life. It’s pushed me to think about the privilege and power of having a community, particularly living in Western society that places so much emphasis on the individual.
TSW: Who do you bring into the room with you when you write, and/or, who do you consider your work to be in conversation with? Who are you writing for?
ILK: I bring into the room my family and relatives first and always. They are who have shaped me. My ancestors too. I know they are there with me, looking over me. They are all why and how I am here today.
I consider my work to be in conversation with everyone, but especially those who share the same identities — BIPOC, Latine, immigrant and diasporic, trans, queer, and femme readers.
TSW: What were you processing during our residency program? Did anything unlock for you? If so, what new entrance did you find for your work or for yourself as a writer in the world? And what caused that shift?
ILK: The residency program was incredibly healing for me. I was so burnt out, exhausted, and I was barely writing before starting the residency. I just couldn’t bring myself to pick up a pen or open my computer screen. But having the opportunity to be a part of a writing community like this, where we were able to be vulnerable with each other and share our thoughts and process different prompts helped me kind of break through and restore some routine and creativity in my life.
TSW: What’s a mantra or motto that you have in mind these days when you are writing or creating? Is there a writing routine or ritual that keeps you beginning?
ILK: I am a night owl. I’m usually the last person awake in my home. So for my routine or ritual I enjoy writing in that kind of solitude you find at night, where there are hardly any interruptions or distractions. Sometimes I have music playing in my earbuds. Maybe a cup of tea or Mexican hot chocolate in my hand.
TSW: What motivates you to keep beginning, and/or, what is a story that gave you permission to tell yours? Feel free to tell us what’s on your bookshelf or TBR list these days.
ILK: Speculative, science fiction, and horror writers like Mary Shelley, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, N. K. Jemisin, Carmen Maria Machado, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia — to name a few — are great inspirations in my writing and creative work. They have written/are writing in straight, white, male-dominated genres, and I feel like picking up and reading their books made me realize that I can tell these types of stories too. I don’t know if that would have been the case without them and I don’t know if I would have enjoyed reading sci-fi or horror either.
On that note, here are a few titles from my (VERY long) TBR list:
- Woodworm
- The Marrow Thieves
- The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet
- Pink Slime
- They Fell Like Stars from the Sky
- The Lost Journals of Sacajawea
TSW: What is something that someone said — a fellow resident, a past mentor, perhaps something from one of the bonus sessions — that helped change the way you see your writing or work?
ILK: When I attended the bonus session with K-Ming Chang, she encouraged us to not be conservative about what fiction and prose can be — that there are no rules in fiction. I’m a big perfectionist, so I felt like I really needed to hear someone say that. That it’s okay to experiment and get messy and try things out and that your writing doesn’t have to look or read a specific way to be valid.
