About Natalia Sylvester

Born in Lima, Peru, Natalia Sylvester came to the U.S. at age four. A former magazine editor, Natalia now works as a freelance writer in Austin, Texas and is a faculty member of the low-res MFA program at Regis University. Her articles have appeared in Latina Magazine, Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and NBCLatino.com. She is the author of Chasing the Sun, named the Best Debut Book of 2014 by Latinidad and chosen as a Book of the Month by the National Latino Book Club. Her second novel, Everyone Knows You Go Home, is forthcoming from Little A in 2018.

Notes from the Tail End of a Whirlwind Book Tour

December 7, 2018 By Natalia Sylvester 12 Comments

I’m writing this at 11:15 p.m. in a hotel room in Dallas, in a bed that is not my own. I meant to be asleep 15 minutes ago, and then I realized that—even though I’d written this on my planner 3 days this week!—I forgot to write today’s post.

It’s been a year of every type of emotion imaginable. A year of so much writing. So much traveling. So much book touring (almost non-stop) for Everyone Knows You Go Home since it came out in March. So little is actually in our hands when a book releases, so I told myself earlier this year that I would do everything I could do for it. For me that translated to doing events. Meeting readers. Crashing at friends’ and family’s places all across the country and sometimes, oftentimes, being home no more than a week or two at a time.

This is the dream, right?

Kinda.

Things that make it absolutely beyond worth it for this introverted homebody who would rather be writing in bed:

The young mom in California who brought her young son to my reading because he’d never met an author before…and getting a note from her the next day telling me how her eyes had teared up hearing her boy telling her grandfather all about it later that evening.

Having readers ask me to make their book out to their mom. A book that I wrote as a gift to my mom…becomes a gift to theirs.

Standing-room only crowds full of loved ones.

Standing-room only crowds full of strangers.

Three-person crowds on a cold and rainy day—and pulling up a chair and just chatting.

Hearing my literary hero (the author who inspired me to write fiction!) introduce my book before a reading using words like masterful and magical (how is this real life?!).

[Read more…]

On Revision as a Form of Reimagining

October 5, 2018 By Natalia Sylvester 6 Comments

I had the chance to visit a class of undergraduate advanced Fiction Writing students this week. It was delightful—I remember being an undergrad, having authors come into our classroom, sit at a desk, and just chat with students. It always felt like such a privilege to gain insights into their writing process, and it was absolutely a privilege for me (some 13 years later) to be able to share my experiences with them.

These being writing students, their questions were so different from those I get at Q&A sessions with readers. They were incredibly specific and craft-focused.

Here is a rendering of me every time I am initially asked a craft question:

Shrug emoji. That’s all that goes through my mind. Because at first thought, I don’t really know how I did xyz in a specific scene or throughout the narrative. I know it was difficult. I know it didn’t just happen. I know I knew enough to sense something was off on the page and that I needed to fix it until it was right. Craft is hard work, but it can also feel like magic. It’s subtle enough to feel instinctual, when it’s really the deeply engrained benefits of practice and experience.

In other words: when I’m asked a question about craft, I inevitably end up describing revision. Because I’m not a writer who gets everything right the first time. I’m not even a writer who gets everything right the second time. Except for the occasional scene that has manifested more or less in its true, final form (again: magic!) I am very much a reviser.

When I was an undergrad, my Creative Writing teacher once told us: the first draft is self-expression, the art is in revision.

I embrace that wholeheartedly in the writing process. I write a first draft with no real plan or outline, then I step back halfway through and try to piece together what I might be saying. Sometimes at that point, I’ll outline the rest of the story, but it’s only once a first draft is done that the real work can begin.

For me, revision starts very organically and gets progressively more strategic with every subsequent draft. But in the beginning, I just feel my way through a story. Some ways I do that include: [Read more…]

The In-Between Stages of Writing

September 7, 2018 By Natalia Sylvester 11 Comments

There are so many in-between phases in the writing life.

There’s the time before you begin writing a story, but have already felt the beginnings of a story simmering inside you.

The time between finishing a draft and revising it.

The time between finishing that draft and revising it yet again. (Repeat as necessary.)

The time between finishing a story and starting a new one.

What do you do with that in-between time? I’ve discovered this must be what non-writers call hobbies. Things that bring you joy, that you do purely for fun and pleasure. Which isn’t to say that writing is not something that brings me joy or that brings me pleasure…it’s just that I don’t quite see it as a hobby so much as a part of my life. Like breathing and reading.

I’m learning that the most nurturing hobbies for me are the ones that allow me to turn off my writer’s brain for a bit. Walking through my house the other day, I realized something. [Read more…]

On Writing a Novel that People Call Political

July 6, 2018 By Natalia Sylvester 18 Comments

I’ve been getting some interesting questions while on book tour.

1 – Do you plan on all on your novels being so political?

And

2 – How come your novel doesn’t get more political?

The funny thing is, these questions actually don’t contradict one another other. In fact, they reveal a lot about how we think of art and politics. They are what happen when we think of art and politics as being two wholly separate things. Rather than seeing them as being organically intertwined, we like to think one can be applied to another in increments or measurements, as if making a novel political is as simple as baking: mix in X or Y amount of Issue A to a plot and you get a novel that is either somewhat or very political.

My life experience does not allow me to see—or even experience—things quite so simply. As an immigrant and a Latina whose recent novel deals with family sacrifice, love, generational trauma, secrets, marriage, adolescence, borders, and immigration, I’m often told things like my novel is very timely, or that the topic of immigration is very relevant right now. I’ve lived my whole life as an immigrant; to me and millions like me, immigration is not a “topic” but a lived experience. We cannot separate politics from our lives because our whole lives there have been policies in place that affect us.

Which is why question #1 (do you plan on all your novels being political?) so often creeps up. What a question like this fails to acknowledge is that all stories are political—the only difference among them is the role those politics play. If they are unperceived in a story, it is only because the people in it are lucky enough to have politics working in their favor: unfelt and unintrusive.

In stories like mine, in a time and setting where the current (and historical) politics obstruct and oppress the lives of the Latinx immigrant communities I’m writing about, the political becomes more visible. It is a force that we do not have the privilege, as much as we’d want to, of ignoring. Even if I were to write a fun, “non-political” story that makes for an escapist read, it’d be difficult to do so authentically because my existence as a woman of color and immigrant is politicized in the world we live in. The example I often give is this: [Read more…]

How to Perform (Not Just Read) Your Work in Front of Audiences

June 1, 2018 By Natalia Sylvester 15 Comments

I have to confess I’ve never been a huge fan of public speaking. And yet, since Everyone Knows You Go Home came out in March, I’ve been on a whirlwind of a book tour that’s consisted of day after day of public speaking.

And I’ve loved every minute of it.

Despite being an introvert and a person who grew up very shy and soft spoken, reading my work in front of audiences has been a transformative experience. Whereas for my first book, I would get nearly unbearably nervous before an event, for my second I’ve learned to embrace the nerves as productive energy. It reminds me a lot of my teens and early twenties, a time when I was a dancer and performed onstage regularly. Always, before curtain, I’d become overwhelmed by a rush of nerves that immediately went away when the music started. There was no going back at that point, so I’d have no choice but to surrender to the moment. Those three to five minutes of dancing were always pure bliss, liberating in ways that are hard to describe.

Reading my work has begun to feel like that as well, but only because I don’t think of it as reading or public speaking. I think of it as a performance. Framed in this way, it’s something I realize I’m lucky to be able to do. Here is an audience—real, live people!—wanting to experience my work.

As a show of gratitude, I try to make that experience as enjoyable as possible. Below are some ways performing affects how I prepare for an event—and how it might help you, too. [Read more…]

A Letter to My Past Selves in the Days Before the Second Novel Publishes

March 2, 2018 By Natalia Sylvester

First, a confession: I’m writing today’s post at 11:36 p.m. because for months now I’ve known that I’d be posting this on March 2, eleven days until my next novel, Everyone Knows You Go Home, is published on March 13th, and partly out of procrastination, and partly out of wanting to share something as close to the “eve” of pub day as possible, I left it for the last minute.

It’s hard to know what to write in moments like these because for me, being on the verge of publishing a book is overwhelming. It’s a period full of every possible emotion you can think of, and since you’re feeling them all at once, it’s difficult to pick any specific one with any semblance of clarity or perspective.

Tonight I sat at my desk and logged into my WU account, hoping something, anything, would spring forward. And I remembered one of the first posts I ever wrote here, back when I was invited to guest blog just before my first novel, Chasing the Sun, came out. In June of 2014 I shared a letter to Aspiring-Writer-Me from Debut-Novelist-Me, and tonight I thought: Of course. Write another. [Read more…]

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18 Writing Lessons to Carry Into 2018

January 5, 2018 By Natalia Sylvester

For the past 6 years on my blog, I’ve been writing an end-of-the-year list of life lessons learned. It occurred to me as I wrote 17 Things I Learned in 2017 that so often, many of my “life” lessons end up being writing lessons, and vice-versa. And then it occurred to me that these aren’t just lessons to look back on, but to carry forward. So whether you’re embarking on a new writing project this year, tackling an old one, or simply trying to find direction along this journey, here are 18 bits of advice for 2018.

1. I think I may have seen this on Instagram, but it rang so true I’ve written it on my planner: “Progress, not perfection.”
2. When you think of your audience, don’t think about who’ll buy your book. Think of who will read it as if it’s the greatest gift.
3. During a poetry reading by Ocean Vuong, someone asked him where the violence in his poetry comes from. He calmly answered, “It’s in me. It’s in you.” Whatever we’re writing about, we cannot expect to fully examine in it unless we’re willing to look inward. If we’re only looking outward, we are taking the role of spectator, not writer.
4. From ire’ne lara silva, on writing younger characters and struggling with backstory, with how to weave in history: “Young people don’t have history. They discover it.”
5. From Achy Obejas, during Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshops: “Don’t write happiness, write the promise of it.”
6. Also from Achy Obejas, “Failure is when character is revealed.”
7. From Cristina García (also during Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshops, where I clearly learned so much!), “Texture and specificity in every detail allow us to enter a story. The generic keeps its distance; the specific invites you in.”
8. Also from Cristina García, “Let pleasure and obsessions be your guides to what you write. Be daring, write the stories no one can write but you. Writing should be a constant festivity of questioning.”
9. Do not fear flaws. In fact, dive into them. A character’s greatest flaw holds the key to what will be their downfall, what will be the decision or action or mistake that unravels them (and thus, your plot).
10. While teaching a class on finding the heart of your story, I discovered the heart has much to show us about writing: When you’re looking at the big picture, look closer. When you’re looking close, step back. Do this over and over—expand, and contract, like a heart. [Read more…]

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The Time It Costs to Write

November 3, 2017 By Natalia Sylvester

The most common question I’m asked about my books is, “How long did it take you to write them?”

The second most common question: “What is your writing routine like?”

I usually hesitate to answer either of these questions because I suspect they’re another way for a writer to compare him or herself to others, which is never helpful. Sure, there are probably tips and insights to be gleaned from learning that it took me nearly seven years and countless revisions and rewrites to finish my first book, or that I often go months without writing at all, and then spend months writing daily…

But that’s just me.

And I know that really, at the heart of this question is an unspoken plea for the answer we all seek: how do you find the time? On the flip side of that plea is a guilt and almost-shame of not having (or making) the same amount of time as other (perceived) successful writers. [Read more…]

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How White Writers Can Be Better Allies to Writers of Color

September 1, 2017 By Natalia Sylvester

In the nearly three weeks since white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, many of us have been (rightfully so) discussing ways to combat hate and dismantle systemic racism.

But the truth is, these conversations have always been urgent and necessary. And not just in that large-scale, overwhelming, how-do-we-stop-more-white-supremacists-from-marching kind of way. Our efforts to build a more just and equal society cannot be reactionary, galvanized only by tragedy. They must be happening constantly, in large and small scales, in each of our communities.

This includes our community of writers, editors, and publishers. What happened in Charlottesville is a chilling example of why diverse representation matters in the books and media we consume. It’s a chilling example of why sensitivity reads are not about censorship, but preventing harm. A book that stereotypes its characters of color and a Neo-Nazi march may be two very different things, but they exist on the same plane and slope. No one lights a torch and joins a hate-fueled march without ever having been exposed to ideas that—intentionally or not—dehumanize people who are different from them.

That being said, this is not a post about how to write the other (this, however, is a very good one). This is a post about writers of color, and the kind of help and actions we most need most from our white writer allies. To all who have felt helpless, or asked what you can do, here are some ways to be better allies, compiled by me and other writers of color whom I asked to weigh in. [Read more…]

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How to Go On Vacation & Write While You’re Not Writing

July 7, 2017 By Natalia Sylvester

Confession: I’ve been on vacation and am writing this post in a last-minute frenzy because many of my to-do’s got away from me.

When I initially packed my bags, two weeks ago, I very ambitiously packed notebooks, pens, a book and my laptop, thinking that I’d get super inspired and make fabulous progress on my new story.

Did that happen? In an actual, feasible way that can be quantified by word count?

Of course not. But, I did manage to:

Book an emergency Airbnb home (long story) that told me so much about the people who lived there that I decided that my characters once lived in a home just like it.
Take pictures and retrain my eye to process the world not just through words but colors, lines, and images.
Sleep in a lot, and dream a lot. In one dream, I began writing a poem and woke in a panic, looking for that notebook I’d packed. When I couldn’t find it I typed up the poem in the Notes app on my phone, in the dark while the screen glared at my eyes.
Talk to family members and reminisce. Aside from exploring all the different ways that we each remember the same story, I spoke to my grandparents in hopes of learning more of my family history. I made an effort to listen more than I spoke. [Read more…]

What a Sensitivity Reader Is (and Isn’t) and How to Hire One

March 3, 2017 By Natalia Sylvester

An interesting thing has been happening to me with increased frequency: I’ve been asked to read friends’ and acquaintances’ manuscripts as a sensitivity reader for stories that deal with immigration. Because I am a Latina and an immigrant, and the authors who’ve requested I read their work are writing outside of their own experience, I’ve been asked to evaluate their work for authenticity. So far, I’ve had to turn down these kinds of requests because I’ve been busy with my own writing and mentoring work, not to mention personal commitments. But while I am not actively offering sensitivity reading as a service, there are several writers and editors who are. As sensitivity readers become more sought after in the publishing world, their role has been met with mixed reactions.

First Things First: What Is a Sensitivity Read?

A sensitivity read is an evaluation of a manuscript, usually one that touches upon characters and experiences of a marginalized group of people, that is performed by someone within that group to bring attention to potential inaccuracies, biases, and reinforcements of harmful stereotypes. Much like one might ask a cardiologist to read their story about a cardiologist for accuracy, a sensitivity read helps ensure that the portrayal of characters and worlds unknown to the author ring true. But more than that, it helps authors better yield the immense power and responsibility of their words. How many of us write because we want to make sense of the world around us? And more importantly, how many readers seek out our work in search of stories and truths that will, inadvertently or not, shape how they see the world?

This kind of work takes, well…work, at every stage of the process. There’s pre-writing research, there are revelations we experience during the writing itself. Post-writing, a sensitivity read provides yet another crucial layer of learning to the process. And yet, some authors continue to resist (and resent) the very idea of one.

Maybe it’s the name. The word “sensitive” has gotten a bad wrap lately, too often used to accuse someone of being too touchy or emotional. Perhaps the real question writers should be asking is: am I being sensitive enough? Am I using my senses to foster acute awareness and concern for the complexities of what I’m writing about? Isn’t that part of our job as writers?

Maybe it’s how it’s described. A recent story titled “Publishers are hiring ‘sensitivity readers’ to flag potentially offensive content” included an unfortunate word choice in the headline alone. The main purpose of a sensitivity read is not to avoid offending; it’s to avoid harming. If you’re writing about a person who is marginalized or underrepresented, understand the weight of what that means—for readers who rarely see their experiences reflected in books, seeing negative or erroneous stereotypes reinforced can be hurtful to them and their community. For readers outside of that experience, yours may be one of the few stories about a disabled or gay or black person that they read for years. Books carry authority; they have a way of seeming to represent the truth. They can expand or stunt our capacity for empathy. What author wouldn’t want to get this responsibility right?
[Read more…]

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We Will Always Be Beginners

January 6, 2017 By Natalia Sylvester

Please join us in welcoming new contributor Natalia Sylvester to Writer Unboxed! Born in Lima, Peru, Natalia Sylvester came to the U.S. at age four. A former magazine editor, Natalia now works as a freelance writer in Austin, Texas and is a faculty member of the low-res MFA program at Regis University. Her articles have appeared in Latina Magazine, Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and NBCLatino.com. Her debut novel, CHASING THE SUN, was named Best Debut Book of 2014 by Latinidad and was chosen as a Book of the Month by the National Latino Book Club. Her second novel, EVERYONE CARRIES THEIR OWN WATER, will be published in 2018. You can connect with Natalia on Instagram here. Welcome to WU, Natalia!

On the first week of the new year and for my first post as a regular contributor (hello, WU fam!) it seems only fitting to write about beginnings.

But not new ones. Not the fresh starts or the “New Year, New Yous” messages we are so often bombarded with this time of year. Not the literal and figurative blank pages that are so exciting-we-will-finally-get-them-right-this-time-omg-no-pressure-right?!

Because really, we’ve been here before.

How many January’s have unfolded before us, ripe with potential?

How many first lines, first chapters, first drafts?

How many times has the progress in our Works-in-Progress marched forward, only for us to end up back at square one?

Each time we start over, we find we know (more or less) what to expect. We know what the air smells like in January. We recognize the late-afternoon pastel sky and grey-white trees. But despite being packaged in the familiar, what the year will bring is unknown to us.

And so it goes with our stories. The process will be similar in some ways to the last one—a blank page blossoming into a draft that will be edited, and rewritten, and reworked. But we won’t really know what a story demands of us until it becomes what it’s meant to become.

We are all in different places in our paths, and yet, we will always be beginners.

Starting Over is Still Starting

I’ve been reminded of this countless times in my own writing and publishing journey:

When I signed with my first agent and the book didn’t sell, and I had to start over and write a new one. Faced with that new beginning, I was heartbroken, but once I got back to the writing I recognized that new story for what it was: a new source of hope. (It became my debut, but not my first, novel.)

When, years later, my agent submitted a revised version of that unsold novel to the publisher that had acquired Chasing the Sun, and they turned it down. That rejection, no matter that it wasn’t the first time I’d gotten it, hurt as much as a fresh wound.

When I finally moved on and wrote what I hoped would be my second published novel, only to learn that my agent and I had different visions for the story. After months of trying to make the partnership work, we parted amicably and I began querying agents again. [Read more…]

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About Natalia Sylvester

Recent Posts by this author:

First Things First: What Is a Sensitivity Read?

Starting Over is Still Starting