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I tell people to have a relationship with their work every day, even if it means you just move a comma.

Achy Obejas

This is going to sound nuts but it took me forever to figure out why I’d stopped writing poetry – I mean, I went about a decade where I wrote very little poetry and I thought it was because I was doing a weekly blog.
ACHY OBEJAS

Forever Mean Poetry Sound Stop Stopped Took Writing
I think one of the unintended results of the embargo is that Cuba is quite consumerist – and I’m talking about the people, not the government or the official propaganda.
ACHY OBEJAS

Cuba Embargo Government People Quite Result Taking Unintended
I feel possessive about stories I write in Spanish and so I usually end up translating those into English myself.
ACHY OBEJAS

Country Feel Possessive Story Translate Write Writing
We’re a long way from the embargo ending. Look at what just happened with the rollback of Obama’s Cuba policies. Two idiot congressmen convinced our idiot president to make it harder on Cubans on the island.
ACHY OBEJAS

Embargo Ending Happened Idiot Long Look President
And I know that when I worked daily journalism it really affected my patience with literature, which I think requires reflection, and a different kind of engagement.
ACHY OBEJAS

Affected Journalism Kind Know Literature Patience Require Work
Interestingly, in Cuba abortion is treated as lightly as getting a mole removed.
ACHY OBEJAS

Abortion Cuba Interestingly Lightly Mole Removed Treated
In journalism, if there’s a hole in your story you figure out a way around it because you’ve got a 4 p.m. deadline.
ACHY OBEJAS

Deadline Figure Hole Journalism Literature Story
It’s a neat skill to have but it’s deadly for literature. In literature, you need to stare at that hole, not ignore it. You need to figure it out.
ACHY OBEJAS

Deadly Hole Ignore Literature Neat State
I tell people to have a relationship with their work every day, even if it means you just move a comma.
ACHY OBEJAS

Everyday Mean Moving People Relationship Work
And then when we moved, I reconfigured my writing desk. The previous one had had very little space to write by hand. And suddenly, the poetry was gushing!
ACHY OBEJAS

Desk Hand Moved Precious Reconfigured Space Suddenly Writing
Offspring were a joy or a shame, but still the crown of their elders, nature’s unpredictable creatures.
ACHY OBEJAS

Crown Elder Joy Offspring Pride Unpredictable
Fiction lies somewhere in between. I usually start intuitively but eventually I need to stop and consider structure, or research, or both.
ACHY OBEJAS

Depend Granted Health Take Tend
Journalism is very much public writing, writing with an audience in mind, writing for publication, and frequently writing quickly.
ACHY OBEJAS

Audience Mind Publication Reflection Thinking Writing
So much depends on our health, and we tend to take it so for granted.
ACHY OBEJAS

Depend Granted Health Take Tend
The legacy of the embargo will be Cuba’s poverty and desperation. When the island comes out of it, they’ll be even more desperate than they are now about the things they think they’ve missed.
ACHY OBEJAS

Desperation Embargo Island Legacy People Thinking
Both childbirth and abortion are medical procedures but neither is an illness, and sometimes they’re both treated as such.
ACHY OBEJAS

Abortion Child Childbirth Illness Medical Procedure Sometimes
I’m never afraid of research. I relish it!
ACHY OBEJAS

Afraid Experience never Relish Research
Each genre has its own process. I’m very intuitive about poetry. I usually write first and second drafts out by hand. The other end of the spectrum is journalism, which is much more cerebral, more thought-out and planned.
ACHY OBEJAS

Genre Intuitive Journalism Lying Poetry Process Truth Writing
I’ve gotten to try on voices very different than my own, and I’ve become much more aware of structure than ever before. Also, you really weigh every word. There’s no closer reading then when you read to translate.
ACHY OBEJAS

Different More Much Own Reading Trying
Our real world has evolved. It’s become something much different, and inadvertently about healthcare, and about what it means to have good health, and to be able to have good health.
ACHY OBEJAS

Different Evolved Inadvertently Mean Real Something

I tell people to have a relationship with their work every day, even if it means you just move a comma.

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I tell people to have a relationship with their work every day, even if it means you just move a comma.

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