On my book
The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive:
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BOOK REVIEWS & INTERVIEWS
- Popular Literary Blog “I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell do I read?“includes #vbafterd among its reading recommendations.
- The Lesfic Underbelly gives #vbafterd a hilarious and spot-on animated video review, which you can watch here:
- Journalist Daniel Hernandez reviews #vbafterd for his renowned blog Intersections and interviews me on these topics:
[INTERVIEW EXCERPT: Answers edited down for space]
Q: How did the book come about?
A: I wrote The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive over a period of about 3 years. I didn’t know I was developing a book, however, until the end of the 3rd year. During that period (2005-2008), I bottomed out on nightclubs, Mickey’s Malt Liquor, and half-hearted affairs with bi-curious women in heterosexual relationships. They weren’t my proudest moments, but undeniably some of my most consuming. An intense period of trying out remedies that seemed to cure other people’s despair, but just deepened mine.
[… My friends and I] were driven go-getters with artistic aspirations working hard to forge our paths in the adult world, which required embracing thwarted expectations on a daily basis. We worked loathsome pay your dues jobs and took to the LA Eastside/Downtown/Chinatown nightclubs in desperate attempts to forget our unpredictable futures. George Bush Jr. was president at the time, Hollywood was making Mission Impossible 3 or 4, and oppressed Palestinians continued suffering merciless injustice. Feelings of utter powerlessness and hopelessness overwhelmed us, and we grew apathetic together.
[…] I spent late nights, usually in the sober moments before I cracked open a bottle of Carlo Rossi since I can’t write while boozed, jotting down our emotional dismemberment. I didn’t think many people would want to read them. I mean another poem about drunken misery? Honestly, I sort of hated myself for them.
[…] Everyone is affected by and affects politics whether they’re political or not. So in regards to the characters in my book, they continue to live the minor accounts of their daily lives in the backdrop of the 2008 presidential elections — meaning that they still form some part of the greater political puzzle.
Q: Where did you grow-up? Tell me more about your background.
A: I was born to a middle-class Cuban family in Los Angeles, CA. I’ve lived throughout the burbs’ & hoods of Los Angeles such as Glendale, Downey, South Gate, Bell, and Koreatown. I also lived in Miami & Ixtlan Del Rio, Mexico for several months. I moved around A LOT as a kid. Around 25 times, I think. I spent most of my childhood at the Maywood Baptist School and then transferred to a couple of public schools in Downey. Ultimately, my high school home-stay was the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) where I majored in Theatre Arts, and I graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 2005 with a Bachelors in Film Production & minor in Theatre.
Q:Will you be voting for Obama next time around?
A: NO. No I definitely will not be voting for Obama in 2012. As someone once said, “I was in love with the idea of Obama.”
You can read the review/interview in its entirety by clicking here.
For more fun excerpts, interviews, & articles on The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive click here!
Thanks for your support & I hope you enjoy the read!
Big Hug ~ V
BLOGGIMIA 