Interview with Anna Lapera and Donna Barba Higuera, Authors of Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice and Firesnake

Welcome to Smack Dab, both of you! Could you please each give us a brief description of your most recent works? 

Anna Lapera: Thank you! My debut novel, Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice, a coming-of-age story about a twelve-year-old girl who stumbles upon a family secret connected to the Guatemalan civil war, and how she uses her newfound knowledge of feminist resistance movements in Guatemala to stand up to the injustices at her own school.

Donna Barba Higuera: I’ve had a few projects released in a short span of time; a chapter book series The Unlikely Aventuras of Ramón and El Cucuy that is making its way into the world. It is about a boy and his boogeyman navigating the world, school, and an infestation of boogeymen from around the world.

Xolo entered the world recently also. It’s a graphic novel/illustrated novel of sorts that reimagines the Aztec mythology of the twin gods, Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl, and their quest to rescue the bones of humanity from the god of the Underworld. Xolotl is often forgotten. He is the god of monstrosities and lightning, who lives in the shadow of his famous feathered serpent brother. But what if Xolo was the true hero?

And finally, the third and final book in The Last Cuentista, Firesnake, releases the first week of June. Firesnake follows a new character, who is born and raised on the planet Sagan, but is torn from the world she loves when a mysterious message arrives from an Earth the survivors thought had been destroyed. This book combines the first and second books, The Last Cuentista and Alebrijes, for a meeting of those two worlds and characters.

You’ve both written about mixed-heritage protagonists who feel pulled between two worlds. How did you each approach writing those experiences?

DBH: This is actually the easiest part of writing these stories. Dystopian/Sci-fi is all so ‘imagined’. But the real-life happenings and mixed-heritage occurrences are almost always drawn from actual situations that have happened, or feelings I’ve experienced. But in writing them, I just put myself back in those memories. Sometimes these things are humorous, and I laugh out loud while writing. Other times, they are difficult to write, and going back to certain memories can be difficult, just like anyone’s life experience is.

AL: Well, two things. I feel like there is definitely a scarcity in books that portray the diversity that exists within Central American communities and experiences. So it was important for me to create a character like Mani who maybe we don’t instantly think of when we think ‘Central American’. But that’s just the thing---I don’t want readers to arrive at any Central American character with any preconceived notion of who they are or what their family is like. Mani is one glimpse into one of the multitude of Central American experiences. On the other hand she also has a Chinese-Filipino-American father, and it’s not until she connects more with her dad and his history do we see Mani really start to make sense of her world. I definitely looked at my own identity for this one. I was born in Guatemala, but my father is Hawaiian, Filipino and German. I wanted to bring to life the very annoying parts of that, like when extended makes fun of your accent, or how there’s always going to be someone who makes you feel like you’re not “enough”, but I also wanted to add that very unique and beautiful thing about being a person who pulls from many places: that there is something unique about that experience that no one can take away. For my character, it was the discovery of the hidden letters from the aunt she had heard of only in passing. The letters serve as this archival history. And for kids like Mani (and myself at that age), experiences like this are common, and I think super unique to our situation.

The Latinx experience is obviously not one thing. It can be Guatemalan heritage, Mexican folklore. . . . What parts of your own cultural specificity did you feel was important to include?

AL: I’m sure it’s not surprising to hear that I cannot think of many central American characters that I read in books as a kid. And certainly not any that were afforded the same nuance and range of experiences as other book characters out there. So I really leaned into my own experience to build Mani’s character and her world. Of course, she’s not an exact copy of me. I made different from myself in many ways. For instance, I loved going to Guatemala as a kid. It was the highlight of my life, every time. But that didn’t seem too interesting for a character. However, something I took from my own life is the sense of gloom that sometimes seems to associate with the ‘motherland,' especially when it comes to stories told by older generations. I grew up with sense of ‘something intense happened here’ when it came to thinking about Guatemala. But it wasn’t until I was a teen that I learned about its troubling history. And when I asked about it, I got the same vague response each time: “Oh yeah, that was a difficult time.”

But that history really seemed to be marked by silence. So this is definitely something I explore with my protagonist and her group of friends, Las Nerdas, all of whom are children of immigrants who inherit those nuanced stories.

DBH: Hmmm. . . . This is a tricky question. While I’m writing, I’m not thinking of what is most important to include from a “culturally specific” standpoint. I just write of the memories, and smells, and sounds, and stories that had the most impact on me personally. I guess memories are there for a reason, something that made you feel something deeply.

For Donna: The Last Cuentista won both the Newbery and Pura Belpré Medal, two of the biggest awards in children’s literature. How did those awards change your relationship or approach to writing? Or did they?

DBH: At first, for sure the awards sort of loomed over my shoulder as I wrote. It messed with my creativity for a while. I knew people were watching, so I wrote too cautiously. I threw out a lot of my writing from that time period. It took me some time to hit the reset button, and forget about the awards and attention. I needed to return mentally to that place pre-Newbery and Pura Belpré, where I wrote with the mindset that no one was ever going to read what I wrote. That place is wilder and more reckless, where all the strange and weird ideas that enter my mind end up on the screen. That is the writing kids like. Not the safe stuff.

For Donna: The Cuentista Series uses elements of sci-fi and dystopia to bring Mexican folklore into the future. What do those genres allow you to do with Mexican folklore that straight realism does not? 

What a great question! To be honest, I’d never read a book quite like The Last Cuentista, as a child or an adult. I didn’t think this book would ever be published. It’s a book that had all the elements of fiction that I love. The weird. Sci-fi/dystopia.

But it also incorporates the storytelling I’d grown up with, with the spin that the character, Petra, reinvents those stories based on the horrors she’s experiencing in this dystopian world. It was such an adventure writing this. I felt like I could live through Petra, experiencing new creatures on a new planet, and fighting against a tyrannical rule, but I was sure the concept would be too strange for publication. Straight realism would not have allowed for this reinvention of the stories, folklore, mythology, filtered through the lens of space travel, a new planet, and a dystopian regime.

For Donna: You grew up in California, near oil fields and farming areas. How much of your own childhood’s landscape has made it into your fiction?

Oh, it’s always running in the back of my mind. It’s so much a part of who I am. The stories always make their way into the writing somehow. The opening setting of The Last Cuentista, while set in New Mexico, is absolutely me imagining myself with my grandmother in the San Joaquin Valley oilfield desert where we lived. In the second book, Alebrijes, the survivors, the Cascabeles, are descendants of the field and farm worker, and oil field workers of that same valley where I grew up.

For Anna: You’re part of Las Musas, a group of Latinx and nonbinary authors. What has this group meant to your writing and what would you say to any young author who has not yet found their community? 

AL: There is something that always gets said. I see it written down in so many places. That writing is isolating and individual. Sure, maybe, sometimes. But I write in community. Being a part of Las Musas was huge. I don’t know if I would have had a book without it. I had the most wonderful mentorship experience. I don’t know if I truly thought of myself as a writer until that experience. Not only was it crucial to my writing and this book, but I was embraced by this really beautiful and supportive community of writers. Since then, I have sought out writing communities whenever I can, despite my own time constraints. I have learned that there are so many ways to show up and be in community as a writer.

For Anna: Mani Semilla is available in Spanish and English. Did you always know that book would appear in both languages? Did it affect the writing of the book? Or did that come later?

AL: When I first started, I had no idea that the book would be translated! It has been such an amazing surprise. I have loved giving the Spanish edition to my students, and to my family. It was also such a neat experience to get to speak with the translator and be a small part of the process. A big part of my protagonist is all of the code-switching she does. There were many discussions about how to capture that in a translation. Language is fascinating!

For Anna: You’re also a middle school teacher. How does spending so much time with your audience shape how you write for them?

AL: It doesn’t necessarily shape the voice. I think my protagonist’s voice on the page is something I’ve played around with for a long time, even just in my head. And plus, you never want to use language that they are currently using, because that changes. I watch those changes in real time. What shapes how I write for young people is my belief that young people (especially middle schoolers) need and deserve a wide range of stories, and that they are ready for reading about big and difficult issues. It’s all about how it is presented. I think books provide a really critical avenue for which to introduce difficult topics to kids and to give them ways to talk about it and examples of other kids dealing with these issues, fictional or not. Before I connected with my fabulous agent and editor, I had many people read my manuscript and suggest that I age up the protagonist. But it was something that I felt so strongly about: that there is room for these more difficult topics and I think it is important for kids to have access to a wide range of stories.

For both of you: When you read each other’s work, what feels familiar? What surprised you? What do you wish you had done? What inspiration did you take from each other’s work?

DBH: With Anna’s writing, I feel a familiarity in a sense of justice. Mani was a character who has a complicated background with a family who keeps secrets. All families have secrets I suppose, secrets they keep thinking they are protecting others. But there was a familiarity for me (that I think is universal) of often feeling powerless at that age. And trying to determine where your power lies. Because you feel so connected to Mani, you feel her frustration, embarrassment, sadness. . . . But you also cheer with her during triumphs.

There were also very powerful cringe moments that we all felt at the age Mani is. I was surprised how even at my age, Anna’s writing transported back to middle school, and some of the most cringe-worthy moments of my life. This was a great lesson to me as a writer. I know as a writer, I neglect those powerful moments that are make you cringe and are uncomfortable. That is brave writing. I need to learn to do this.

AL:  What feels familiar with Donna’s work is that at the root of her stories are universal desires and themes we grapple with as humans: to pass down knowledge, to tell stories. I think it’s something that is instantly recognizable amongst the super intricate world building that Donna is such a master at! I am so inspired by her incredible range or stories. 

I also think her opening line in Lupe Wong Won’t Dance is probably one of the best lines in the history of opening lines.

What’s next for both of you?

AL: I’m dipping into YA this time, with a suspenseful coming-of-age story set in 1978 Guatemala City about an aspiring journalist that documents the resistance movements unfolding around her during a particularly intense year of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. I also have notebooks filled with MG outlines, and even an adult book, but my brain can only focus on one thing at time.

DBH: I am taking a moment to read and work in my garden to refill the well. I do have a few ideas brewing. But I’ve learned from past experience not to force it. I’m slowly letting all the weird and strange come out naturally in these ideas.

Where can we find both of you?

DBH: My website is www.dbhiguera.com . There you can find all info, including educational guides and “One Book” discussion questions. For event announcements, my Instagram is @donnabarbahiguera

AL: At coffee shops, hiking trails, or taking my kids to all of their activities. But the best place is on Instagram @annalaperawriter or on my website www.annalaperawriter.com