Presentation of Dialogue on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great State of Idaho; by the Friends of Idaho Public Television, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

With additional funding from the James and Barbara Cimino Foundation.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine: This is a novel I never even dreamed that one or two, three people would read it; but now thousands of people are reading this book, and I get to share the stories of my family with the world.

Marcia Franklin, Host: Coming up: as a child, she didn't see books about people who looked like her.

So as an adult, she created them.

I talk with author Kali Fajardo-Anstine about her book of short stories, "Sabrina and Corina," and her novel, "Woman of Light."

That's next on a 15th anniversary edition of "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference" on Dialogue.

Stay with us.

(Music) Franklin: Hello and welcome to Dialogue.

I'm Marcia Franklin.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine has always been a reader.

Growing up in Denver, though, she wasn't able to find books that reflected her multi-cultural heritage.

But now, drawing on her own family history, she creates them.

The stories aren't always easy – sometimes they include violence or tragedy.

But, she says, that just makes them more real.

And readers are responding.

Her book of short stories, "Sabrina and Corina," was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her novel, "Woman of Light," is selling well.

For Fajardo-Anstine, it's been a joyous time, after a lot of heartache.

I talked with her at the 2022 Sun Valley Writers' Conference about her creative journey.

Franklin: Well, first of all, welcome.

It's nice to meet you.

And I understand you've already visited Boise for one of the big arts festivals, which is Treefort.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah, I was just here not too long ago.

I think it was a few months ago and it was in downtown Boise.

And my boyfriend Connor is in a band called "Wynona" from Wyoming, and we just, we had an incredible time.

I loved it and I couldn't wait to come back, so I'm excited to be here.

Franklin: So here you are.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Franklin: And there's another Idaho connection with The Idaho Review.

Talk about that.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

So back in the day, oh, in around 2013, 2014, I was writing the stories in my debut collection, "Sabrina and Corina," and for the life of me, I could not get these stories published.

I was sending them to big magazines on the East Coast and over and over again I would get rejections, but through a connection, one of my mentors, Joy Williams, uh, she set me up with an editor at The Idaho Review, and -- Mitch Wieland -- and Mitch accepted "Sabrina and Corina."

And that was just such a huge boost to my career at the time.

And that's how that story started the seed for the entire collection.

And I also loved that it was regional.

You know, I'm born and raised in Denver, Colorado.

I write a lot about place.

And it just made me feel like I was part of a larger Western conversation.

Franklin: I follow you on social media and I have to say that there's just so much joy and pride emanating from you and your posts right now, um, as it regards "Woman of Light," the novel of yours that has come out recently.

What has this been like for you?

Fajardo-Anstine: Well, thank you so much.

Uh, so "Woman of Light" is a novel that took over a decade to write and it's based on my own ancestors.

And I think there's a lot of joy and pride because it hit the national bestseller list.

And this is a novel, I never even dreamed that one or two, three people would read it; but now thousands of people are reading this book, and I get to share the stories of my family with the world.

Um, and I think that's maybe why I'm so joyful and I'm so happy.

And also, my readers, um, they're just really enjoying reading this book together.

A lot of book clubs are reading it.

I just visited one last night in Denver.

I surprised them (laugh).

So, um, yeah, I just, I have a lot of fun because I faced a lot of rejection early on, and what's the point of doing all this, unless we're having a little bit of fun?

Franklin: And you're reaching readers like yourself, like you were when you were growing up.

And, uh, talk to folks about what that was like growing up and why it's so important for you to represent your background.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah, so I, I was a voracious reader.

I still am.

And it was, it was sort of a strange connection because books made me feel safe.

And I'm talking about like "The Boxcar Children" and "Little House on the Prairie" and "The Giver."

But the one big issue I saw is that there were no Chicana stories about mixed people who come from indigenous heritage.

Um, I'm also mixed with Filipino and Jewish, and all of those layered ancestries were a big part of me.

Everywhere I went when I was a little girl, people would stop me at the store, at school, and they would say, "What are you?"

And for me not to be able to go into a bookstore or go to the library and say, "Hey, I, I'm getting a lot of questions about what I am.

Do you have any books that can help me understand my identity?"

Um, for there to be very few books that would help, um, I realized that there was something missing.

So that's been, one of my goals is to give people like me a voice and to let them know they're not alone.

Franklin: You're also interested in bringing forward the stories of Denver.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

You know, growing up in the West, growing up in Denver, it's not like I could turn on the TV and suddenly there was a sitcom family sitting in a house in the Denver suburbs.

It was like -- we didn't exist; weren't in any movies, uh, we weren't on commercials.

And that sort of was heightened with the fact that I didn't exist culturally, that I wasn't seeing representation of Chicanos from Denver.

I wanted to tell the story of people like me, and place is a big part of who we are.

I wouldn't have a Filipino great-grandfather, I wouldn't have a Jewish grandmother, if my Hispano ancestors had not come north from southern Colorado in the 1920s and '30s.

So place is really the meeting point for all my ethnicities and my heritage to come together.

So if I wiped out place in my work, then I'm not accurately representing the people that I come from.

Um, and I'm just really proud that I get to write books that are set in Denver and people will read them all over the world.

Franklin: I'd like to start by talking about Sabrina, "Sabrina and Corina."

And it says, of course here, "National Book Award Finalist," which has to be exciting for you after having so, so many difficulties.

And this was an outgrowth of your MFA… Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Franklin: …thesis, which is also, uh, really interesting.

These stories I found riveting.

Um, they're quite dark, many of them, the, the ti, the title story, "Sabrina and Corina" certainly is.

Fajardo-Anstine: Mm-hmm.

Franklin: But that's, that's life in a lot of ways.

Was there a mood that you were trying to get across there, or some common themes?

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

You know, I, the darkness in my work, I think back to when I was first discovering writers, whom I admire and who were big influences on me, and I remember being in high school and reading Flannery con, Flannery O'Connor for the first time and thinking, "Wow, like this is really a dark piece of work, but I feel seen in this somehow."

And for a lot of readers -- you know, Sabrina in "Sabrina and Corina" is strangled to death.

Um, in another story an auntie is blinded on a date.

Um, children are abandoned and so on and so on.

But these stories also have a lot of joy and heart and happiness to them.

I did not wanna shy away from the realities of my community and my own existence.

And I'm just tired of sort of plowing over violences that happen to women, um, pretending like they don't happen, and then the next generation picks up and goes on.

But what happens if another family member is in a similar situation, and they haven't heard the story about what happened in the past?

Franklin: One of your own teachers in high school, um, basically told you to drop out of high school, which you, which you eventually did.

But you got your GED and you went to college.

So, um, how did this book, and the publication of it help you personally?

Fajardo-Anstine: Oh, it's, this has been everything.

I mean, I get emotionally even thinking about it.

Before "Sabrina and Corina" came out, I was working odd jobs.

I was an office secretary.

I had been fired from jobs.

Um, I loved teaching and I was a really good teacher, but there wasn't a lot of upward mobility in the positions that I was able to get.

I was living at home in my parents' house, um, at 30 years old, when "Sabrina and Corina" came out.

And, you know, not very many people were reading it in the beginning.

I wasn't getting a lot of press, not very many reviews.

And there was sort of this groundswell that happened, especially in the Southwest and the Mountains West in particular with Latino readers.

And when it got nominated for the National Book Award, I remember I went on a hike by myself and I just like looked out at the vistas and the sky.

And I thought, "My life is changing.

Like today, my life has completely changed."

Um, and it allowed me to finish "Woman of Light."

I don't have to work odd jobs anymore.

I get to go and speak and teach.

And my whole life now is devoted to literature.

Um, so I, I will always be very, very grateful to "Sabrina and Corina" for allowing me to sort of meet my destiny as an author.

Franklin: I think I, I read that it helped save your life in many ways, because it, you do suffer from depression.

You've been open about that.

Or you live with depression, I shouldn't say that.

But, um, I'm curious about your teacher.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

(Laugh) Franklin: You sent her a copy?

Fajardo-Anstine: I did.

(Laugh) So, um, it was a really sad thing.

I, my depression is something that I've lived with since I was a child.

And I, I struggled in school because of it.

I would miss classes.

I would turn in assignments late, and I had begged and begged to get into this Advanced Placement English class.

But one of the caveats from this particular teacher was, "If you miss any class, then you are out of this.

You're completely cut out of this class."

And I thought, "Oh, of course I can handle it.

I will, I will not miss any class."

Um, you know, two weeks into my senior year, I have a depressive episode.

Don't get out of bed for multiple days.

And of course I miss class.

When I get back, the teacher pulls me aside and she actually has a paper that I wrote on Flannery O'Connor and she's holding it.

And she's saying, "Wow, you know, you might be a pretty good writer someday.

Uh, but I don't think you're cut out for school.

I actually think you should drop out."

And at that moment I started crying and I, I grabbed the paper back and I said, "No, please gimme another chance.

I'm, I'm really going to try as hard as possible."

And it was just like speaking to a blank wall.

She was like, "No, absolutely not.

You're, you don't get to come back into this classroom."

Um, I'm stubborn.

I dropped out that day.

I drove and I, um, I took the GED, um, and I scored very high (laugh).

And, um, so when "Sabrina and Corina" was published, it was actually my father.

He said, "I want you to give her a copy."

Um, and I was like, "No, I mean, that seems a little dramatic."

But I think for him too, it was vindicating.

Um, he watched me struggle so much with my mental health and to see this come out of that.

So I hope she's read it and I hope she's no longer telling students to drop out of school.

(Laugh) Franklin: Um, well, let's move on... Fajardo-Anstine: OK. Franklin: …to your current book, "Woman of Light," about a character named Luz, primarily.

And it follows five generations.

Do I have that correct?

Fajardo-Anstine: Yes.

Franklin: Of one family, mixed family like yours, um, through, from the "Lost Territory" of southern Colorado, um, to Denver in the 1930s.

Um, the genesis of this is your own family and the stories that you heard from your great-grandmother, grandmother, aunt.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah, it's, you know, I think about these memories often because they make me feel so safe.

I grew up in this incredibly large family; there are seven children in my immediate family.

And we have all these aunts and uncles and grandparents, and we lived all over Denver.

So when I was a little girl, we would visit my Auntie Lucy on the west side of Denver.

And she always had pink lipstick on, her beautiful white hair was curled and done up and there'd be Turner Classic movies on.

And we would just sit there, and we would watch the old time movies.

But then without a doubt, she would go into story.

And the stories, some of them repeated, but a lot of the stories focused on the family's migration from southern Colorado, from the mining camps to Denver in the 1920s.

Their father had been a Belgian miner.

He never married their mother.

He abandoned the family.

Um, and so we heard a lot of stories of triumph, but also a lot of the tragedies and the racism they faced once they got to, to Denver.

Um, Denver was a hotbed of KKK activity in the 1920s and into subsequent decades.

So, hearing those stories, eating those foods and being around my family, I just knew like, "Why were we not in a big novel?"

You know, we were, we had all this oral history and all these wonderful stories, but again, I would go to the bookstore, and I would say, "Hey, do you have a migration story that's like my family?"

And there was nothing.

So I knew from the time I was a teenager that this would be one of my callings was to put these stories into a novel.

Franklin: You start out, I think in a very compelling way with kind of a Moses in the bullrushes story, you know.

Um, you start back in the 1800s.

Um, I, this is very compelling story.

I actually wanted more of it in many ways.

Um, how did you decide to start with that?

And what's the import of it?

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Franklin: It's a, it's a, it's a little baby that's abandoned and found by a woman.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

So I, I grew up knowing that I had indigenous ancestry, and I knew that my family, my maternal family, um, our lineage could be dated back to the pueblos of northern New Mexico.

So when I was developing the characters in women of light, they're all based on ancestors and some of them that I knew personally.

But the older generation, like Pidre, the baby that's abandoned in the weeds, um, he had to be invented.

And when I was working on the invention of this character, I thought, "Well, you know, I'm a mixed person."

I thought it'd be really interesting; what would it be like to be a mixed baby who's abandoned and discovered and taken care of by a people?"

Um, and so he's taken in by the "Sleepy Prophet."

Um, his is an indigenous woman who goes into trance, but she often falls asleep while she's dictating her visions.

And that character just fully came to me formed.

Um, but Pidre, he also, I think, is based on the men in my family, who are very loving, who take care of the family, who take care of the children.

I know my work does focus a lot on women, but every once in a while I have a really kind and sweet male character.

(Laugh) Franklin: You've got some not-so-sweet men in there too.

Fajardo-Anstine: (Laugh) Yeah, I do.

Yeah.

(Laugh) Franklin: Uh, talk about your title, character, Luz, "light."

"Woman of Light."

Um, what does she embody for you?

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

You know, Luz to me is like an everyday American girl in some ways.

She may be an indigenous Chicano who is living in poverty.

Her brother has been thrown out of the city.

Um, she also may every once in a while read tea leaves and have visions.

But for the most part, she's trying to find love, she's trying to find cute clothes and she wants to hang out with her best friend and her cousin.

Franklin: And we should say, this is in 1920s, 30s.

Fajardo-Anstine: This is 1933; it's the Great Depression.

And she has been abandoned by her father.

And also, her mother has succumbed to alcoholism.

Luz, while I was working on her, it made me think of all the dead-end jobs I had, all the times that people talked over me as a young woman.

And it made it feel like I didn't have a voice.

Luz is very quiet and very observant.

And I think that can be frustrating for some readers because they want her to get up and, you know, stop things and use her voice more.

But she's just not there yet.

And I wasn't there yet at 17 years old.

But we do have her best friend and her cousin Lizette, who is very outspoken.

(Laugh) Franklin: As they understand they were melded at one point and you broke them apart.

Which is interesting.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

They, and I, I think that's sort of interesting because in my work, I, I often have dual characters.

So there's Sabrina, who's very outgoing and loud and then there's Corina, who's quieter.

And that happened again with "Woman of Light."

Um, I was noticing every once in a while Luz would be in a situation where she just was much more outspoken than I, than I thought she really was.

And the more I thought about it, I thought, "Wow, you have another character inside of you."

And so I pulled Lizette out of Luz.

Franklin: Probably doesn't hurt that you have two sets of twins in your family, too.

(Laugh) In your siblings, you got two sets of twins.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Franklin: There's a lot of duality going on there.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

And they, they came back-to-back.

So, um, the first set, I believe they were born when I was three years old.

And then the second set was born when I was 10.

So I did grow up watching infants essentially like mumbling in their own language, signing to each other.

So yeah.

I have watched a lot of duality in my life.

Franklin: um, as I understand it, your initial editor -- was it?

-- When you turned it in, said, "This is something."

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Franklin: But are, "Have you done the research on it?"

You're like.

"Research?

This is my life!

I know it!"

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Franklin: And she's like, er, "You might wanna go back and do a little bit more research," and then you plunged into it.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Franklin: And you were looking at, you know, as you mentioned, the KKK, you were looking into newspaper articles, even robes, um, photographs of demol-, where houses used to be.

Fajardo-Anstine: Mmm-hmm.

Franklin: Uh, how important was that kind of burrowing and researching aspect for you for this book?

Fajardo-Anstine: You know, all of my work, I want it to be very immersive.

I want people to feel like they're in the 1930s or they're in the room with a family, with a grandparent listening to a story.

And it just doesn't work if you don't research.

It's, it's very, um, flat.

It doesn't have much texture.

So yeah, it was my agent.

I turned in a draft and this was 2015; I was living in Durango, Colorado.

And the characters were there and some of the plot was there, but I didn't know what kind of cars they drove, if they could even afford a car.

I didn't know how big their apartments would be, what kind of lipstick Luz would've worn, the dresses; all of that was just sort of foreign to me.

Um, so the research, it was hard oftentimes because Latino, Chicanos, indigenous people, our stories are not necessarily housed in the archives.

But I also found wonderful stories from my own community, from my own elders.

And I got to do just really hands-on research and form connections in a deeper way with my family than I ever would've dreamed of.

Um, and so the process of writing "Woman of Light" has really brought me closer to my elders.

Um, my grandfather, my godmother she's in her eighties and was recently just diagnosed with cancer.

And I'll never forget this experience we've had together of her telling me stories and me somehow using those and giving them to Luz in this book.

Franklin: What does "archival justice" mean?

Fajardo-Anstine: Well, to me, archival justice means that someone from my background could go to an archive and say, "I would like to learn about the kinds of jobs that my great-grandmother had."

And even though these weren't fancy jobs, or even though she was a chauffeur or laundress, there would be sort of records of that.

And what happened with the research of "Woman of Light" is that I found tons of board meeting minutes and receipts for dry cleaning, from very wealthy families and all the Klan memorabilia that I mentioned earlier.

But it was hard to find things that were dedicated to everyday lives and most of us come from everyday lives.

So to me, archival justice means that we are inserted into the archives at the same rate as the elites.

Franklin: How would you characterize Luz's journey and, uh, her relationship to the title, "Woman of Light?"

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Well, to me, Luz's journey is the coming-of-age story.

Um, it's set during one year when she's 17; she turns 18 years old throughout the course of this year.

Um, she's never had a romantic partner.

Um, and she, she really is trying to figure out who she is without her older brother who takes care of a lot of things in the family.

Um, a woman of light to me is any person, uh, who sort of illuminates the world around them and takes care of their community.

There are many women of light in this book.

It's, Luz is glowing and she has visions, but she also comes from a long line of seers.

And going back to the earliest, uh, mention of a female character, Desiderya Lopez, the "Sleepy Prophet," I believe is the originator of the light in this, in this novel.

Franklin: There is violence in this book, as well as, as we talked about in "Sabrina and Corina."

Right at the end, there's, there's a very violent act.

I assume that it was important for you to put that in there.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

I think, you know, growing up in Denver, a lot of violence that was committed against indigenous people was really sort of glossed over.

I'm thinking of the Sand Creek Massacre, um, and many other massacres.

Um, but it wasn't until recently that Denver is even sort of -- and Colorado in general -- is even addressing these atrocities.

And if you come from a family like mine that has mixed and indigenous heritage, we have lived firsthand through atrocities.

And it's just, it's really important to me that the truth is in my books.

Um, and I know truth sometimes feels subjective, but I am really attached to the idea that there is truth and that's what I'm hunting for in all of these stories and in this novel.

I want to find the truth and I want to provide that for readers.

Franklin: Now we see Luz up until the 1930s or whatever.

She's not that old at the end of the book.

And it begs the question: (laugh) would there be a sequel to this?

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Franklin: You've probably been asked that before.

Fajardo-Anstine: I've been asked (laugh).

Franklin: Because it does, it does kind of end somewhat abruptly.

I mean, there's unfinished parts of the story.

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

Franklin: So would you see it going forward or would you just like the, the reader to come to her own conjecture about the future?

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah, you know, I that's the style of my endings, even in the short stories, is that I have very open endings.

And I, I have been asked so many times, "Do you have a sequel planed?

Do you have a sequel planned?"

And I, I do want to write a novel about my family history from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Which skips quite a bit, um, from the thirties to the seventies.

My family's story is just so large and I couldn't really like cram that all into "Woman of Light."

So I do consider this sort of the jumping-off point.

Um, I was really inspired by "The Godfather" (laugh), so maybe the next book will, will go back in time and forward in time, but I'm listening to readers and I hear you want more.

Um, and I will gladly provide you with more.

(Laugh) Franklin: No horse heads though.

(Laugh) Um, and it's cinematic in its own way.

Have you thought about, um, having it be filmed, or?

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah, we I'm working with a film agent in LA right now, and I'm hoping that a production company or somebody wants to get the rights.

Um, I think it would just be so fascinating to see some of these scenes on the big screen.

I'm very inspired by cinema, um, obviously, if you can't tell from the writing, but yeah.

It would be like a Denver's version of West Side Story in a way (laugh).

So, I hope someday we get to see this on the big screen.

Franklin: You know, uh, it's, it's charming.

I read that your, your godmother, who, who also figures very, very large in, in your life and reflected in the stories, told you when she read this, that, um, she actually talked to the ancestors about it.

Yes?

Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah.

So she, I was really nervous what the elders in my family would think, because in some ways I am sort of showing what we came from, which is a lot of poverty and a lot of violence and not always the prettiest picture.

Um, but my godmother, she told me she read it twice.

And I didn't even know her to be a reader.

So I, I was blown away by that.

But at one point she said, while she was reading, especially about Diego, who's a snake charmer, she looked up to heaven and she told our, our uncle Jakie, who had been a snake charmer, she said, "Look, look, you're all in a book!"

You know?

And she was just so proud and happy.

Um, and she's in this book too, a little bit in Maria Josie.

Franklin: Do you think, I mean, America's increasingly becoming mixed.

People are marrying lots of different people from different backgrounds.

Do you think we'll see more and more stories, um, about mixed heritage and, uh, more acknowledgement that there is a market for such stories?

Fajardo-Anstine: I hope so.

And it, it would've really helped me when I was younger.

And it would've helped my mother and all of the mixed people in my family.

Um, but I, I think that's just inevitable.

I mean, this that's the trajectory of the country.

And so many of us have stories that we want to tell, and we haven't been able to tell them before.

So I, I know we're going to see more, especially with the next generation.

Franklin: What did you learn about yourself as you wrote this novel?

Fajardo-Anstine: I learned that I can write a novel (laughs) that's, and that, that's like just saying a lot, because I've struggled with, you know, mental health issues.

Um, I had a lot of dead-end jobs and I had to move all over the country.

And I learned that somebody from my background, from my mental health capacity, can sit down and finish a 300-page novel and people will buy it and read it, you know!

(Laughs) So I want to encourage other, other writers to know that you can do this if you really set your mind to it.

Franklin: Well, congratulations.

And I look forward to reading what you write in the future as well.

And have a wonderful time at the conference.

Fajardo-Anstine: Thank you so much.

And it's, it's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Franklin: You've been listening to author Kali Fajardo-Anstine.

Our interview was taped at the 2022 Sun Valley Writers' Conference.

My thanks to the organizers of that dynamic event, and to the Dialogue team.

If you'd like to listen to the conversation again or watch any of the 70 interviews we've recorded at the conference over the past 15 years, head over to our website.

That's idahoptv.org/dialogue.

You'll also find them on the Idaho Public Television YouTube channel.

And don't forget to like the Dialogue Facebook page!

For Dialogue, I'm Marcia Franklin.

Thanks for joining us.

(Music) Presentation of Dialogue on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great State of Idaho; by the Friends of Idaho Public Television, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

With additional funding from the James and Barbara Cimino Foundation.