Inprint ends its 2009/2010 Margarett Root Brown Reading Series season tonight with a Cinco de Mayo bang featuring two literary greats from Texas.

The reading series, responsible for bringing four Nobel Prize and 41 Pulitzer Prize winners to Houston, showcases native Houstonian novelist and blogger Gwendolyn Zepeda and National Endowment for the Arts fellow Texan Oscar Casares on the Hubbard Stage of the Alley Theatre at 7:30 p.m.

Hair Balls caught up with the witty, two-time Houston Arts Alliance literary fellowship winner and award-winning poet Gwendolyn Zepeda.

Hair Balls: Tonight, you’ll be walking in the footsteps of Latino greats such as Pat Mora, Martin Espada and Ruben Martinez. Not only are you part of such a prestigious reading series but you also get to share the stage with the famously handsome Oscar Casares. What’s your history with Inprint?

Gwendolyn Zepeda: I met Executive Director Rich Levy at a Houston Poetry Fest reception for an anthology that included one of my poems a couple of years ago but this is the first year I’ve officially worked with Inprint. I think they were really interested in me after I read at the Texas Book Festival in October. In February, I had the launch party for my second novel, Lone Star Legend, and Inprint invited me to read at their Poets and Writers Ball. (Inprint’s yearly gala where tickets go for $500 each) I thought I did a pretty good job with that (Laughs).

HB: It’s been a busy six months for you.

GZ: I’m having the time of my life. Even if I never sell another book,
knock on wood, I’m glad I have the opportunity to meet the people I’m
meeting right now. I have an irrational fear of networking but now that
I know that it’s mainly about getting drunk with them, I love it.

HB: The publishing industry has taken a big hit. Mainstream
publications are laying off writers in droves but you’re still writing
and getting book deals. What’s your current take on the industry?

GZ: Just in the last 10 years, the publishing industry has changed so
much. At first, publishers were looking for Chicken Soup for the Soul- or border-themed stories or books peppered with random Spanglish and
‘Latina’ in the title…then came something called Alisa Valdes. Writers
hate to hear other writers talk this way, but if it weren’t for her,
there would be a lot of Latina girls who could not sell books. As soon
as Dirty Girls Social Club came out, the big houses in New York were
acquiring Hispanic editors and asking them to go out and acquire
Hispanic writers. Now, I think I’ll be able to sell books forever, but
the price will just keep getting lower and lower.

HB: What made you think you could get published?

GZ: I always wrote, but it wasn’t until I went to U.T. and read Woman
Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros, that I was like, oh wait, I’m
allowed to be published, too. I just felt like nobody would buy
anything from me. I didn’t really have a community of writers around
me. I was kind of the lone wolf. So f-ing around online on a forum, I
pulled an Al Gore and I invented blogs for Latinas. I really did if you
think about it.

HB: This is the first time you’ve officially made that statement in an
interview.

GZ: You can see my blog that I’ve been writing since before it was
called a blog….remember online journals? I’ve researched it and
there’s a guy that claims he has the longest-running blog ever and he
started a month before I did so I’m pretty sure I can make that
statement now with a clear conscience. I was the first Latina blogger
ever.  

HB: When did you start to notice your work gaining a following?

GZ: Television Without Pity is really how I started my writing career. I saw what was out there and thought ‘I know I can do something better
than that.’  

HB: Then came your first book, To the Last Man I Slept With and All the
Jerks Just Like Him.

GZ: My first book was originally titled Love and Animals. Nick
Kanellos changed the name and I cried when I saw it. I thought, ‘All
the men are going to think I hate them. But I love my dad, I love my
son.’ It was tough but now I’ve been able to represent. People in Sixth Ward, single moms, people with Asian fetishes [Gwendolyn’s husband is
Asian], half-Mexican, half-whites are saying, well if Gwen can get
published, I can too.

BH: Tonight, you’ll be reading from your second novel, Lone Star
Legend, just released in February, but you already have two more books
lined up for this year. What else can your readers look forward to this
year?

GZ: Yes, I’m finishing up my third novel. I also blog for the
[Houston] Chronicle regularly, I’m the feature for the Poison Pen Reading Series
in June, heading for Washington D.C. for the American Librarians’
Association conference, I’m always trying to write a kids’ book and I
have to think about what I’m going to write next. I’m also waiting to
hear about a short story, I submitted a story for Sarah Cortez’s You
Don’t Have a Clue anthology. I’m trying to branch out.  


 Zepeda and Casares will be reading from Lone Star Legend and Amigoland
tonight as part of the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series.

This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2010.