I’ve mostly known Alexandra Peñaloza Alessandri through her enthusiasm around Latinx children’s literature, which usually matches my own. She writes poetry, pens picture books and other projects that she keeps secret from us but I’m sure will see the light of day. Her debut picture book will be out in 2021 and I wanted to talk to her about her writing process, what her story’s about, and growing up speaking Spanish.
Congrats on your picture book, Isabel & Her Colores Go To Kindergarten, being picked up for publication! Can you tell us what it’s about and if you’re working on that manuscript right now?
Thank you so much, Adriana! And thank you for having me here. I’m so excited about Isabel & Her Colores Go To Kindergarten. It’s the story of Isabel, who processes everything through colors and who’s really nervous about starting kindergarten because she only speaks Spanish. While her teacher and classmates speak English, Isabel struggles to understand the strange words and to make friends. It’s my kindergarten story, sort of—I attended kindergarten in New York not speaking a word of English, and boy do I remember the mishaps that happened because of that. It’s also the reality of millions of children today, the vast majority of them Latinx. So I’m really excited this story is going to be out in the world.
A lot of people believe that picture books are easy to write or draft because it’s just a few pages. Can you talk about the more complex issues people can run into when writing a picture book?
This really is a common misconception, though I guess it is easier to “finish” a draft because it’s shorter. But that doesn’t mean it’s easier to have a workable, publishable draft at all! Because picture books are so much shorter than novels, you have less space to tell an equally engaging story with a fully fleshed out plot and characters. You have to make every single word count. In this way, I find writing picture books and poetry to be similar. They force you to be precise with your words, to have them do double and even triple duty. You also have to consider illustrations, leaving enough space for the illustrator to do their magic. Unlike novels, picture books rely on the images to complement the story, to fill in details that in novels would simply be written in text. As a picture book author, you have to keep that ever present in mind, constantly assessing what should remain as text and what would work better illustrated.
What does your writing process look like? Do you come up with a story idea and then build a world around it or do you come up with a character first and build the story around them?
My process is sometimes maddening and changes so often depending on the story! Sometimes, like in Isabel & Her Colores Go to Kindergarten and another manuscript I have on submission, they start with a premise of the plot and a specific universal emotion I want to explore, often based on a moment lived or observed. For Isabel, I knew I wanted to capture this feeling of being lost because of the language barrier, but maybe not in a literal sense (which was my reality). Sometimes, the story starts with a character. Sometimes with an image. But always I go back to brainstorming and drawing out—even literally sometimes, though I can’t draw to save my life!—until I get a sense of whose story this is, what’s going on, and what’s at stake. Then I write.
It’s worth mentioning that I have a notebook where I jot down ideas as I get them. If I’m participating in Storystorm, or if I see something and think “There’s a story in there!,” I jot it down. If I don’t have a clear sense of what I’m going to write next, I’ll often flip through those pages and sometimes, a couple of those ideas will stand out, melding together into my next project.
You have free reins to collab with another Latinx creative and they’re free and on board as well, who are you picking and what are you making?
I would love to work with illustrator Elisa Chavarri. I follow her on Instagram and love, love, love her style and her play with colors. Her illustrations on Rainbow Weaver are absolutely gorgeous. What are we making? A story filled with the vibrancy and beauty of the Andes mountains, perhaps.
How does your identity affect your writing?
My Colombian heritage and Colombian-American identity are both present in all of my writing—from poetry to fiction, from picture books to young adult fiction. Most of my characters are either Colombian or Colombian-American, and much of my poetry explores themes of family, culture, and identity. It’s been refreshing to give myself permission to be Colombian-American on the page because I didn’t always feel free to write my reality. Since the passing of my father in 2008, I’ve felt a keener need to embrace my identity. Even though I’ve always identified as Colombian, I haven’t always felt that I was enough—not Colombian enough, not American enough. This struggle inherently makes its way into my stories and poetry.
Who do you write for?
I write for those who are told, either explicitly or through actions, that they’re not enough. I write for our children, so they can have another story in which they can see themselves. I write for kid-me, who never imagined that kids like her could be protagonists in their own stories.
Shoutout a Latinx writer or creator whom you admire!
Oh, this is HARD! There are many Latinx creatives that I admire, like Zoraida Córdova, Elizabeth Acevedo, Christina Diaz Gonzalez, and Nina Moreno, among others. But I want to give a special shoutout to Rebecca Balcárcel. I recently finished her debut MG novel The Other Half of Happy and I’m still thinking about it. It’s lovely and lyrical and so thought-provoking, and I connected deeply with her story.
Anything else you can share about your upcoming projects?
I’m hoping to have some news to share soon, but for now, I’m working on revising a MG project that is in many ways a love-letter to my Colombia, filled with its magic, legends, and landscapes which I love so much.
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Alexandra Peñaloza Alessandri
Alexandra Peñaloza Alessandri is a Colombian-American poet, children’s author, and professor at Broward College, where she teaches composition, creative writing, and literature. She received her BA and MA degrees in English Literature from FIU and a Certificate of Fiction from UCLA Extension. Her work has appeared recently in The Acentos Review, Rio Grande Review, YARN, and Atlanta Review. She lives in Florida with her husband and son, dreaming of Colombia.
Alexandra is represented by Deborah Warren of East West Literary. Her debut picture book Isabel and Her Colores Go To Kidnergarten is forthcoming from Sleeping Bear Press (2021).