The Courage to Begin with Peggy Robles-Alvarado

Writing, Community, and Staying with the Work! Today’s episode invites us into a powerful conversation about writing, community, and what it means to stay with the work.

Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán is joined by award-winning poet, performer, educator, and RoblesWrites Productions founder Peggy Robles-Alvarado, whose work spans poetry, performance, and community-centered literary practice.

At the heart of this conversation is her acclaimed poetry collection, Burn Me Back, a work that moves through memory, ancestry, grief, and resilience with striking clarity and force. More than a collection of poems, it constructs an experience shaped by the body, personal history, and the layered realities of identity and belonging.

Peggy reflects on how Burn Me Back emerged through a sustained return to the page, a practice shaped by listening, revision, performance, and community. Over time, this process formed a cohesive manuscript grounded in both personal and collective experience.

This episode offers insight for writers at every stage, including:

•  how to move from scattered drafts to a cohesive manuscript 
•  the role of workshops and literary community 
•  how to protect your work and navigate publishing with intention 
• news about our upcoming event at Yale University, Dwight Hall (Sept. 19)

Peggy also shares the foundation of her nonprofit, Robleswrites Productions, where she creates writing spaces centered on intergenerational storytelling, creativity, and equity.

At its core, this conversation reminds us that writing is nurtured in community and sustained through practice.

Learn more about our Casa de Maria Publisher's FREE WEBINARS to keep you encouraged and focused!

Honorable Mentions: Charlie Vazquez, Dr. Rojo Robles , Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, Bori Books & Cafe, Urayoán Noel , 

Author Website: https://robleswrites.com/

RoblesWrites Productions: https://robleswritesproductions.com/

PURCHASE BURN ME BACK: https://fourwaybooks.com/site/burn-me-back/

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR PUBLIC EVENTS:

What We Carry, What We Claim:  Latina Writers on Voice, Memory, and Becoming https://www.eventbrite.com/e/what-we-carry-what-we-claim-latina-writers-on-voice-memory-and-becoming-tickets-1986453897080?aff=oddtdtcreator

https://www.casademariapublisher.com/PUBLIC-EVENTS/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Casa de Maria. This is a space for writers, artists, and cultural storytellers who believe that our words carry memory, meaning, and responsibility. Here, we gather to reflect on craft, honored lived experience, and explore ethical pathways to publishing and creative growth. I am your host, Dr. Lima Luz Kalal, founder of Casa Rimaria Publisher. And I am grateful you are here. Welcome back to Write, Reflect, Reimagine.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Today's episode reveals the power of tapping into a writing community. Our work as writers does not completely thrive in isolation. It is best shaped through relationships with fellow writers. It takes form by connecting in shared writing spaces and open conversations about the writing we seek to grow. It beautifully blooms in the spaces where language is given permission to unfold. Some writing connections occur gradually. Others return to us when the time is just right. Today's conversation features award-winning poet Peggy Robles Alvarado, whose work moves across the power of poetry into the art of performance and the beauty of community practice. My connection to Peggy began through Charlie Vasquez. Charlie is an author, arts administrator, and community-based literary advocate. His work has long supported underserved writers through initiatives such as the Bronx Memoir Project, made possible through public arts funding and institutional partnerships, including support from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work continues to center writing as both a creative and communal practice where story becomes a vessel for what is remembered and what refuses to disappear. His podcast brings together voices from the healing arts and explores the relationship between creative practice and the importance of collective well-being. That conversation with Peggy and Charlie centered on fear, shame, and writing for community. It stayed with me. It lingered in the way certain lines do, returning when you are ready to hear them differently. As fate would have it, in June of 2024, I reconnected with Charlie at a cultural event at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies in New York City. I shared with him that I was moving to Puerto Rico to establish Casa de Maria Publisher. And in that moment, between conversation and memory, Charlie encouraged me to reach out to Peggy Robles Alvarado. Well, I am thankful that I did. Later that year, as I was taking a brief pause from the construction at Casa de Maria, I connected with Peggy, who also spends time on the island. Now, what began as an introduction became an opportunity to engage with her work and her presence within the broader literary community. We share a commitment to supporting writers and creating spaces where narrative and poetic writing can serve as a transformative practice. Peggy and I share a lot of common ground, one of those being education. Peggy holds two masters in education as well as a Master of Fine Arts in Performance and Performance Studies. Her teaching career spans over 20 years. Now, with decades of experience across our respective teaching journeys, both as public school educators and university professors, we fully understand that writing is not just only a craft, but it's a practice that is nurtured, guided, and held with intention. After trying to support our students to become the best writers that they can be, we understand what it takes to motivate and inspire our students to take those risks. And that shared commitment continues to inform how we support community writers and create space for their voices. In Puerto Rico, Peggy and I have found ourselves in theaters and poetry houses and rooms where voices rise and settle, where stories are spoken into existence. These are the spaces that hold writers. Spaces shaped not only by artists, but by a broader network of support for the arts, including institutions such as the Poet's Passage and Teatro en Quince, supported by the Department of Art and Culture in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Our conversations after witnessing these performances have opened new ways of thinking about how we can continue to support a community of underrepresented and marginalized writers. I am grateful for the community that continues to take shape here in Borinquang across this beautiful archipelago. Peggy Robles Alvarado is an award-winning educator, poet, creative writer, performer, playwright, and producer. She is a Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Literature and a three-time International Latino Book Award winner and a Brio Award recipient, an award from the Bronx Council on the Arts recognizing artistic excellence. Bronx recognizes its own. Peggy is also the founder of Robles Rights Productions, a nonprofit organization through which she has created initiatives such as La Libretta Online and the Abuela Stories Project. Through this work, she continues to produce literary programs that support intergenerational storytelling, literacy, creativity, and equity with a particular focus on uplifting women of color. Her latest poetry collection, Burn Me Back, published by Four Way Books, was selected as a 2025 book list editor's choice for adult poetry. If you have not heard Peggy recite her poetry, you have not heard poetry. Peggy has received writing fellowships from Cantomundo, Desert Nights, The Frost Place, The Ashbury Homeschool, Vona, Candela Playwrights, Dramatic Question Theater, NACLA. Her work appears in the Breakfast Poets Volume 4, Latinex, Manteca, Great Weather for Media, and What Saves Us, as well as Poets.org, The Quarry at Split, featured as the Softest Latine Theater Festival, Dodge Poetry Festival, Lincoln Center, HBO Abla Woman, The Smithsonian Institution, Pan America, Harvard University, and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. As one reviewer from the Latinx Project at New York University writes, her work transforms the scars of migration, colonialism, and family trauma into a series of ritual flames. Well, Dr. Rojo Robles is spot on. Her writing does more than document experience. It carries it, it shapes it. It calls forward memory, ancestry, and the body as a site of knowing. It asks us to consider what we inherit and what we carry. It prompts us to think more about what it means to claim authorship over our narratives. I am thrilled to share that Peggy Robles Alvarado will be featured in our author panel for our upcoming public program, What We Carry, What We Claim, Latina Writers on Voice, Memory and Becoming, taking place on September 19th, 2026 at Dwight Hall at Yale University. Today's conversation invites us into that powerful place, a space where community and creative voice meet. It is an honor to welcome Peggy Robles Alvarado. Hola, hola. It's great to have you here today with us. It is my pleasure. Can we help our audience get a sense of where we are right now?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Well, right now we are in Borinquen. We are on the northeast side in Luquillo, Puerto Rico, in a space that I use very much as my part-time workspace, creative hub. And it is by the things that I love and that inspire me and that heal me by the ocean, by elunque, and by community.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

I love it. Thank you for inviting me into your beautiful creative workspace. Your work lives at the intersection of poetry, performance, and community. And I love how those three points join. When you reflect on your journey, what has kept you rooted in poetry as your primary form of expression?

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Well, like many, many people in the creative world, um, poetry saved my life. So I honor poetry and give back to it and feed it because it fed me at a really critical moment. Um, but it's poetry is what saves me. And poetry is uh has become a platform or springboard for other forms now. Because I also do some playwriting, um, I'm working on different formats of of just expressing myself. I've done some installations that involve poetry and performance. But poetry is the root, poetry is the root of everything that is creative in my life. Um, and I I I poetry picked me. I I can't even say that I picked poetry, poetry picked me. Um, I did my first uh musings of poetry and and performances on open mics in college when I started to learn about black and Puerto Rican studies in Hunter College, when I was taught our history, which is so removed from elementary schools, and I realized I have this voice, you know, this voice that that is that was fed by New York poets like Tato Laviera, Pedro Pietri, Sandra Maria Esteves. Those voices were the ones that I was introduced to at that time, and I realized, my god, this is the first time I see Gucci Frito in a poem. This is the first time I see, you know, uh Pedro Pietri writing about cockroaches. Like and not because they're not noble or they're not worth our space and time, but I have never seen that before. And I saw and I saw more of our community the good, the bad, the in-between, um, the hidden, the secretive, the shameful, then the the things that are not shameful, but we are taught to believe are shameful. So in in meeting those poets, that's when I realized, well, wait a second, I have stories to tell too. And my stories are about being half Dominican, half Puerto Rican, raised in Washington Heights, with this deep connection of nostalgia to Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. So, how can I tell these stories? And the stories are very performative because we are performative people, we talk with our hands, we move our body, we embody what we believe in. So why not? Why not try poetry? Why not try performance poetry? Um, but it was it was poetry picked me, and I and I have been better for it ever since.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

I love that, and I have to say, poetry has been something that burns bright in the work you do, and it is no surprise why your collection, Burn Me Back, has been described as transforming lived experience into something ritualistic and powerful. When you were writing this collection, what did discipline look like for you on a daily or weekly basis?

SPEAKER_00 13:34

I have such an aversion to discipline. I have an aversion to discipline. I I don't I don't have an aversion to structure because I can outline 10 plays in a minute. Um, I don't have an aversion to structure, but I have an aversion to the word, the idea of discipline as a writer. Not in response to any other areas, but for writing. I have a problem with the word routine. Um that's uh also a big aversion for me. I prefer ritual. So I can handle a ritual, do a ritual, complete it, create it, organize it, let it move through my body. But as soon as I see the word routine, it's a shock to my system. Why? Because I was raised on discipline and I was raised uh in my teaching world with routines, and sometimes those are counterproductive to creativity for me. So I try not to uh bully myself into these kinds of discipline structures that are counterproductive. My storytelling is very organic. Now, that doesn't mean that I wait for inspiration. I don't wait for inspiration either because sometimes inspiration can be fickle. But I do believe that if I try to write and it's not writing, I'm not gonna push myself because what's gonna end up happening is that I speak negative negatively about myself. I I push I push myself into spaces of critique and criticism, and I don't want to do that with my artwork. I refuse to do that. So why would I bully something that has saved my life? I would much rather sit in a space and say, Okay, let me try to write. And if it's coming, it's coming. But if it's not coming, then I'm gonna retreat and say, Okay, it's not for today. Maybe I'm gonna draw something, or maybe I'm gonna go take a walk, or maybe I'm gonna research. I'm a very big fan of researching topics for poems, and then it creates this really different kind of animal on the poem. But I don't push myself in ways that are that remind me of discipline that was not productive to my creative self. Discipline is purposeful, but it can also hinder you if you are raised as a girl in a society where girls' voices are not necessarily valued. So no discipline, no routine, definitely rituals, definitely space for trial and error, definitely space to succeed or even fail that day, and definitely a space to pivot into other places where that could feed my writing. If I can't write, then well, let me watch a movie, a section of a movie that I know that inspires me and puts me in a really good place. Let me listen to music that I know is gonna get a character to speak to me. Let me dance. I dance, I mean I'll be perfect, but I will go dance. I'm not afraid of being cringe, I'm not afraid of being recorded in public. I'm gonna dance. I'm gonna do what I gotta do. I'll take a dance class. But I won't push myself to a place where then it becomes a criticism of what I didn't do that day. I didn't fulfill five pages, or I didn't write the whole scene that I refuse to buy into that.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

I love how you have really flipped it on its ear about disarming the word discipline and really diving into framing it as a ritual, a ritual that when we think of rituals, are just approach with such reverence, right? So looking at writing as a practice of reverence and honoring you, your voice as the writer. Now, I will say that there are many emerging poets that struggle with staying, let's say, consistent, right? What helped you remain committed to the work, especially when writing through difficult or personal material really is emotionally taxing?

SPEAKER_00 17:40

I stayed committed because I I couldn't. I couldn't stop. Um, I tried to write different things and I kept returning to my father's story, right? And and my mother's uh rearing of me and my brother, my community in Washington Heights before it was gentrified, where it was a very immigrant, migrant community, mostly Dominican. I kept returning to those poems, and and honest honestly, if I keep returning to that place, it means that something in me and around me wants a voice. So as much as I tried to not write about my father, I kept returning to my father. My father passed, and that amplified the lens um within me. And these poems kept pouring out, and they did pour out in a in a raw fashion, they weren't at all polished to what the book is now. Um, but I did find this this core piece in me, this almost like a seed, and I kept an avocado seed is what I like to say. And I kept trying to like you know put the avocado seed away, and I was like, let's let me write about something else, let me write about uh societal issues and what's happening in the world, and maybe that'll be more universal. And then I realized no no no no no. Um, and the feedback I did receive once the book was done is that these stories are universal to the people that read my work, that don't find themselves in other poetry anthologies, who haven't seen poems like this, where you have a Dominican song about immigration embedded within verses about my mother crying in the kitchen talking to her mother. Um the the the response to this work made me realize that this was bigger than I was. This was something ancestral and and familiar, familial and and and deeply rooted in like we want to tell our stories through you. So I had to honor that. So I just kept working on it, but again, with very um loose timelines until a friend of mine who I love to death, Ricardo Maldonado, gave my manuscript in its raw form, because I gave it to him in a messy raw form. I said, Do you see anything in here that it that can become more? And he championed my work, but he did not tell me that he gave it to his publisher. And I almost died because it was in a very raw state. It is not something that I would have shared with anyone in a publishing house. It would be my first book that was not self-published because I do believe it's self-publishing. I come from that vein where in order to get through the gate, you gotta create some doors as well. You must open some doors as well, you must create, you must document your life and have uh your own body of work. But this was the first time that my work was placed in the hands of a press, and the press responded really well to it. So, again, all of these things happened because I could not stop the impulse to create it. I'd followed what I heard in my voice and my body, and then it created this this body of work that it that became a collection of like family lore. But my I realized that it wasn't just my family, my family was an extension of all the people in my community that were like, Oh my god, that's my poem. This poem is my is what I would write. So I I just kept picking at it, and of course, the timeline accelerated once I signed the contract with four-way books. The timeline accelerated rapidly because now you have deadlines, right? And I don't even like the word deadlines. If you look up the history of deadlines, which I let all of y'all do, um, it's not a great history to that word, so I like to say destination goals. So it became a series of destination goals of like, okay, I have to get this part done, I have to edit this. Um, but even in that, I I was very excited to see the feedback from editors who had never experienced Spanglish poetry in this way. Um, I I was excited throughout the whole process. I cannot say that I was upset at any point about it. It was just a learning, a new learning experience, and I was still adamant and championing these poems that I would not compromise on.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

I love that you. Offer destination goals as well as the part of your feedback journey, getting that feedback from a fellow colleague, someone that you trust to be able to give you that insight and have them deem it ready to share, even like you said, in its rawest form. Um what role did community workshops uh offer in developing Burn Me Back, your book?

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Oh, they're integral parts of my creative process. I am a student for uh my entire life in this dimension. I take workshops, paid workshops, free workshops. I take workshops from people of diverse backgrounds and knowledge. I take workshops in different genres, even if I'm not writing in that genre, because sometimes you'll take a fiction workshop and you end up writing the most amazing poem based on everything you learned in the fiction workshop. Um, I take workshops with people that I admire who have um biographies that are extremely impressive, but I also take workshops from brand new people because they have a new insight, a new lens into the world of poetry. Um I take workshops with my idols, my poetic idols, and I always say I never want to meet my poetic idols because in my mind they're perfect and I want to keep them that way. But I've taken workshops with my poetic idols, I've taken workshops with my poetic rivals, people that I don't resonate with, only because the other part of me wants to see what you're doing. What are you doing? I'm nosy that way, right? Creatively nosy. But I've also taken workshops that have nothing to do with poetry that feed and inform my creative muse. So I'll take a lot of dance workshops, even though I look crazy doing the movements. But I'll take, I mean, I'm I'm about to look into some swimming lessons or something completely out of the box because I want to continue working with water and talking about water. Um, and not just from memory of being in water, but now being instructed in water. I want to see what that feels like and looks like and what that generates. But I take workshops all the time, and I invite, you know, this we went to Bomba workshops.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

And they're hard on the body, but they're feed the soul in a whole different way. So I definitely am an advocate for workshops, but I also create workshops. So I create what I don't see. If I don't see a workshop in the world that I'm looking for, then I invite people in and I have them as guest facilitators so that I can have that workshop also. I'm offering it to the community, but I'm also offering it to myself. Like I need this workshop.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Well, I have attended your poetry workshops and I felt so encouraged seeing the poems that grew under your facilitation in my writer's notebook. Now, I will be honest with you, crossing over from memorist, right, writing a memoir to being a poet is a bit tough for me. It's challenging. And for poets who are sitting on notebooks of scattered drafts, what is one practical step that they can take to begin building toward a collection?

SPEAKER_00 25:13

See, that's interesting because I have a no lie, I'm I have almost more than a hundred and something notebooks. Wow. I store them.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

I don't know what's gonna happen with them, but I store them. And sometimes people say, Well, don't you go back to those notebooks and look for things? And no, I don't because I feel like they're time capsules, and I th and I really believe in morning pages and not morning pages, let me clarify, not morning pages from the artist way. That's a great, that's a great program. But morning as in grief, morning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, morning. Sometimes those notebooks are full of morning pages, of grief pages, of things that I've let go of already, they're gone, they're out of my body, out of my present eye, out of my third eye. So I don't like going back there. But if you do have a collection of like poems that you have that are still in your frame of mind as in the present being, that you're like, oh, maybe this could become something. What I tell people is what is something that bothers you that you can't let go of? What is a theme that is bothering you, or a theme that you identify that you keep writing about? Even when the prompt has nothing to do with this. I, for example, for me, I kept writing about my father. And the prompt would be about a scientific formula, and here I am, the scientific formula of my father's body as it was in decline. What is it that has an urgency in you that you just can't shake? Then that is where you are gonna find your collection. And it doesn't have to be 50 poems only about my father. Once I started committing to okay, I need to take these poems about my father and see what else is in there, then I have to find the constellation. What are other things around my father as this the main North Star? What are the other stars around him that influenced our relationship? You know, my mother, my aunts, and their very loud personalities, my the people in my community, um, the the alcoholism, the functioning alcoholism, right? So all of those became these constellations around my father as the North Star. And that's what I tell poets like, what's your North Star? What's the thing that aggravates you, loves you, can't also annoys you but can't leave you? And then what are the other things around that that you can fill um to complete this story, right? To complete this manuscript. And I do manuscript reviews and I always ask that people love to say, Oh, can I just send you this and tell me what you think? And I always say, give me three questions that you want me to answer. And they take forever because they can't identify what three things they want to know. So, and I don't offer any questions as possible suggestions until they come to me with something. Because within that, I'm forcing them to ask those to themselves. What is it that you're writing about? What is it that you really want to know? Or do you want to just hear this is a great manuscript? Because that's not gonna happen. You know, I can tell you that, but then that's not gonna happen. That's not gonna happen in the sense of like it's not gonna evolve, you know. Not to say that giving critique is is is it has to be cruel. It never for me it never is. I will never give cruel critique. This is someone's body of work, this is someone's budding baby, right? But I I don't want to hear this is great, this is great, this is great. I want you to challenge me. What forms one of the questions that I asked people when I gave my manuscript to them, aside from Ricardo Maldonado, I gave it to Ura Joan Noel, who was instrumental. I gave it to Jocenia Montilla. Um, but Ura Jocenia Montilla did a great job editing, but Ura Joan Noel gave me like six pages of personal, one-by-one feedback to poems. I was like, oh my God. Um based on the fact that I said, I want you to tell me if the first poem is the strongest poem that you see, or if the last poem is the best poem to end this collection, are there poems that you think are weak that are not finished? Are there poems that are redundant? And he offered so much more just by me saying that. So think about what you want people to critique on, not just is this great? Yes, it's great, you wrote it, but what can it, what more can it be?

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Well, I love the way you've illuminated your process, right? From being fed in community workshops, being able to pull it together, right? Deciding what is the nexus, your north star of your work, and really just honing in on that, and then being in that very vulnerable space of asking for feedback, right? And being very pointed in requesting the feedback, which is all about the work that brings me to your nonprofit work. I mean, you offer these workshops. I've been a participant, I walked away feeling so encouraged. The pace is exhilarating. Being able to come into a space and listen to amazing poets, hold the mirror to yourself a little bit, it ups the ante, it reminds you you do have to dig deep and be able to say, I've got this. And you've created those powerful spaces through your organization, Robles Productions. Now, what inspired you to build these community-centered writing spaces?

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Uh Robles Rights Productions uh happened during COVID at the height of COVID. It became um and the new career, to be honest. I decided that I was gonna retire from formal teaching at a time that was really important for me to move out of that space. Not because I don't love teaching, I love teaching. I love students, I love my students. I've even had students, as a matter of fact, in the workshop you were in, we had a student who was, oh my god, she was 30 years old now. She was like, I was in your elementary class. And she wasn't sure she can call you Peggy. She felt weird about you Peggy or Miss Robles. And I was like, this is beautiful. But it was, it came at a moment where I needed to pivot away from formalized teaching, and I'm very glad I did because I think I saved my life, my sanity, my mental state, my body. Um, COVID brought a lot of challenges to really great teachers, and some of them did not survive it. But Robles Rights Productions became my second career in this in this dimension, and it came from a need. Again, I was teaching online uh workshops all throughout COVID, uh, internationally for another organization, and and I decided like I need to do this for myself. Because when you work for someone, you have restraints, you have uh things you have to conform on. And I was like, I'm tired of this. I I I want to do things and I want to learn new things. I again I'm a lifelong learner, and sometimes to my own uh detriment because it is stressful not to know things, but if you don't start, you will never know. Um, if you wait to start, you will never start. If you wait to be perfect and knowing everything, you will never begin. So I just decided let me let me fund, let me start this nonprofit and see what happens. So Rob Rights Productions is a 501c3 organization. It creates literary events that foster intergenerational communal healing, literacy, creativity, and equity for the Bronx and beyond. And we support and publish writers of color with a special, very special focus on women writers. Um, so I started teaching these very specialized workshops thanks to microgrants from the Bronx Council on the Arts, from poets and writers, and from my own income from grant artist grants that were given to me for me to produce my own work. I said I always set aside money from those grants because I feel like that's my giving back. That is my reciprocity to the world to give back these workshops. And honest to God, I would sit there and just dream like what would be an ideal workshop for me that I would want to participate in as a new writer? What did I do? What did I not get that I want to get if I was a new writer right now with all the tools in my box, right? In my school box. So I designed all these different ways to kind of scaffold poetry for new writers or seasoned writers that just want to be involved in my approach. And that's how it started. And everything from that has been La Libreta da Online, um, is an online literary journal for women of color. Uh, Abuela Stories was also a microgrant that turned into an anthology and now exists as an online archive that anyone can submit to, abuelastories.com.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Love that.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

So if you have a story about your abuela, you can write it in there. And abuela could be good, bad, awful, in between, anything you want. Abuela could even be imagined if you never got to meet her. Because what inspired that was my abuela, my Puerto Rican abuela, who I never got to meet, but definitely was speaking into my ear the whole time. So we also have like the workshop that you participated in, which is very fast.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

The energy, it was it was such a great case. I think because what happens personally for me, I get into a little bit of a procrastinator kind of mode. And there was no place to hide in that workshop. You know, like it was that's the point. There's no place to hide. You you're held accountable. Um, and the best part I have to tell you is when everyone shares at the end, and that inner voice that says, Oh, it's not ready, you just suppress it because you realize everyone else put themselves out there and they're sharing. So I love that you are offering this communal space and where your philosophy of designing those spaces is living in every book that is being filled with pages of writing. I I love that. And having attended your online workshops, there is that very distinct level of energy. And um, you know, you feel like you have to show up and and be present.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Yeah, that that's a particular series. It's called Prompt, Pen and Pass. It's very fast-paced, it's very um prompt, you gotta prompt, you gotta write, and that's it. And I also write alongside you. Yeah, so I saw that. I'm positively stressing myself as well because again, this is this is I don't I don't like to put people in positions where they're stressed and I'm I'm calm, or they're vulnerable and I'm I'm the the almighty speaker. Community means community, it means everybody's hands are in. And I'm very tired of the model of community workshops where the facilitator has, of course, this level of power, but it is so stratified that you the community feels alienated in some way. And I don't like that.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

And they don't feel like they're in the end. No, they're not in the end.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

It's it's it's like you are always the person that they have to look at in a certain light. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.

unknown 36:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

So that's one program. We have another one with we just got funded. We did one as a pilot a few years ago, and I'm really excited that we just got a microgrant to continue it. It's called Book Pochinche.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

And book pochinche is where we it's a unconventional book talk where we break that barrier.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Can you because we have uh listeners from almost 20 countries that where they may not know where the word bochinche means. So give us the tea. What does bochinche mean?

SPEAKER_00 36:59

The bochinche is gossip. Bochinche is gossip, it is the book gossip. It's the book gossip, and it is an unconventional approach to a book talk. So what we do is we break the wall, that that barrier that exists between author and an audience. Because a lot of the times what you what people fail to realize is that the audience is full of writers. You know, you're giving up your time to go to this book talk. You could be anywhere else in the world, you're there because you want you're secretly a writer. So what we do is that in this book Pochinche or this gossip about books, we have the author offer a writing prompt to the audience, but the audience, they have to also come with questions for the audience. So it's not just that this author is standing in this place of power and this separation, it is a community talk. And they're virtual, so anyone in the world can participate. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

It's like a virtual town hall getting into this author's brain about their process.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

But the author has to get into the brain of the writers, so they have to come ready, because they're of course the audience is gonna want to have questions. That's that's already a given. But in this book talk, the author has to come with questions for the audience. They have to come ready to have this engagement this engagement with uh a mini workshop. And the host reads original poetry based on the book of the author. So there's engagement in many different levels. It is not a one-sided linear conversation, which we are very accustomed to. You go to a book talk, you're sitting in the audience, this person is sitting on stage. There is no conversation, you're there to passively listen.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

It's really one voice mostly talking and maybe a moderator.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Correct. Yes. For us, it's gonna be an informal, very chatty, very uh gossipy talk about what this author does, what this author doesn't do. We did a pilot with uh Daryl Alejandro Holmes a few years ago, and I piloted because I wanted to see what worked, what didn't, and if it could work for our community. It was the funniest experience, and he came ready. He had his props, he had his talk, he gave us, he offered so much, and the community loved it. They were in their homes, comfortable, but they felt like they were in a communal physical space because of the intimacy of the conversation. So we're looking forward to launching that now. But I have a lot of things up my sleeve that are coming. I have a six-part series workshop that is going to be um coming up soon. It's sponsored by Body Books and Cafe, which is uh Rafiana Martinez's new baby. Um, that is her creation. And she was actually a student at Lehman College who learned of my work and we started a conversation, and and I said, You need to do that. Whatever your dream is, you need to do. And she's literally started Body Books and Cafe this like last year, last year in 2025.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

I'm excited. So many wonderful projects on the horizon, but I will tell you, it's impressive to see how you've kept a pulse on what the needs of the community are. And we have to be comfortable knowing that sometimes that will change, right? And and pivot and make those changes. At Casa de Maria Publisher, our webinars are asynchronous, they're not live. And so they're meant to be reflective. Now, this allows writers to kind of return to the work in their own time. I'm curious how you see the relationship between structured community spaces like yours and more independent reflective writing spaces. How do I see my interactive, present login, everyone's in the space? And how is it maybe returning to folks who are doing asynchronous work on their own time?

SPEAKER_00 40:49

I'll be really honest. I am I am I have a framework for an asynchronous program. I haven't launched it yet, and this is where people have been asking me like, when is it gonna happen? It's it's and and I'm gonna speak to that. It's called Altar to Altar. Alter to Altar is a literacy, it's a literary format for writers, and it helps them, it's a coursework basically, to help them see how their spirituality, their divinity, their god self can be useful in creating work, whatever genre they're in. And I launched a coming soon, about a year and a half ago, and and it's you know, there's live workshops, there's asynchronous material, there's different things to download, but I I put a pause on it, and it's honestly because my spirit told me wait. And again, you know this, Vilma, when you start something new, sometimes there's blind spots.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Yes, and we don't realize you need beta readers, you need people to experience it. And I'll be very honest with you. One of our challenges is we put the work out there and we have to go through the process trademarking everything, copyrights, because you know, our work is out to support new writers, marginalized writers, underrepresented writers. But we know that when we offer something free, there's always the risk that someone can appropriate it and misuse it. Yes. But at the same time, the challenge is if that's what everyone is doing, keeping close, huddling and gatekeeping, then how are we breaking barriers? Correct. So I love that you press pause and you were listening to that inner voice that said, wait a minute, what what do you what ideally, what would you like to wait for to be able to present?

SPEAKER_00 42:43

This is what happened. I I said wait, and then I said, Oh, hold on. Let me trickle. And like you said, beta experiences are really important. So I started trickling little aspects of the program in live sessions to see one, the response to the impact, three, to see if there was anything that I needed to tweak because maybe it didn't play out the way I anticipated it. So I started taking elements of it and doing it in workshops. The six-part series that's coming out with Body Books and Cafe has elements of this alter-to-alter sequence. And I do it that way because I wanna I wanna see what's what blind spots I have, but also, like you said, the legal protections of it. So I realized I'm throwing out this really high-quality baby that I'm developing into a world where I don't see it, doesn't have a cradle yet, like it doesn't have a net, a safety net to protect my intellectual property, my IP. So I had to do that legwork first.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

No, very important that you do. And it's I believe that's important to do.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Absolutely, and it's separate, completely separate from the nonprofit. This is not something that's the nonprofit work. So I'm very glad that I was I was listening to my protective guides who were. Like, hey, you're missing information because if not, I would have made very serious mistakes that would have muddled my nonprofit. This is work aside from the nonprofit.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

So you you decide it's like this is a branch of your own creative space, correct? Separate and apart from the nonprofit work. And that your work is the reason why I think you weighed it is because everything you do, Peggy, is so mission-centered about making a difference, encouraging and building. But I love that you were protective of this work as well. Just as writers should be protective of their writing, you know, before they submit anything to anyone, does that person, you know, is there a non-disclosure form? Um, as well as are they, when you submit your your manuscript, is that person understanding that this is just for review, this is not for publication yet, and that it's protected. That person's privacy is protected. For Casa de Maria Publisher, our subscription page, our manuscript subscription page is it's it's so uh riddled with fine print because we want writers to feel safe submitting their work. Yes. They have to read agreement forms, they have to do forms to show that this is where my document lives, and only Casa de Maria Publisher and myself can see your rights. And retain your rights. Uh, I get very nervous when we see publishing um or independent presses that will say, send us your work. And I I I really I'm uncomfortable that there isn't any form that says that this work is for a certain time, it's only going to be used for this review. It worries me because so many people are taken advantage of.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Well, uh, we are sadly, right, the profession of writing has been demonized back in the day, right? If you were a writer or a poet, oh, that was the worst.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

But also it's especially if the content was not mainstream. It was uh bid in a different strata.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

That, and we have been very much victimized. That's why I say equity in my mission statement. We have been victimized. You know, they don't want to pay poets what they're worth. Um, people will tell you, well, there's no money in poetry, write a book, a novel, a fiction novel. And it's like, why is that? And I question that all the time. But it's also because I've had experiences where I've been approached by major players where, oh, we want to publish this book in our collection or anthology or in our workbooks or in our blah blah blah blah insert, right? Insert whatever.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

And where do we talk about royalties?

SPEAKER_00 46:49

That's exactly it. So they'll send you a paragraph contract, and I read that and I was like, excuse me.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

I'm not releasing my word.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

I am not losing the rights to my word, and it'll say perpetuity. So they want to own your words for life and not pay you. And I have reached out to other poets saying, Did you sign the contract from so-and-so? And they're like, Oh my god, yeah, I can't wait to see my oh. Just to be published. Just to be because we are fed this myth that we must live in scarcity, we must take what is given because quote, poetry is not gonna get you money. That is not true. A lot of the people that that are big players in poetry knew that that was a farce from the beginning. A lot of creative people know that that's a lie. But you have to know that that's a lie. You have to understand what you're reading, you have to understand that if there's no contract, you offer a contract. Offer a contract. Oh, you don't have a contract? I got a contract.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

I got you. No worries.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

This is my contract. Yeah, and I think another part of this has to be be transparent with your peers. I I faced this before early in my poetic uh journey, where other poets wouldn't tell me. I would contact them and be like, hey, how much do you charge for this kind of gig? Or how much do I charge for this kind of uh to get a gig? Yes. They wouldn't share that information, or they had no idea, or they would be like, I charge this, and it's like, well, that doesn't sound right. Because there is no kind of uh place to really point, no, no kind of North Star for that. There's no kind of anchor where you can say this is what I charge and this is the norm. There is no norm, people develop that as they go. So then I started seeing my peers that had established full careers, full lives on poetry alone. And I said, Okay, where's the workshop for this? You know, and some of them did a workshop, the business of writing poetry. Then where are there those? And I sought those out. And then I realized they have a scale. You know, this is my this is my non-negotiable fee scale. This is my non-negotiable contract if the person comes to me and wants to publish my work and they don't have a contract. So this is like the business side, and this is the part that a lot of poets don't like because it is not fun. Running a 501c3 and now this other entity that I'm developing is not fun, it's admin work, you know, and that kills a lot of the times your creative spirit because you've done, you know, this villa. We've talked about this, we've talked about this part.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

But part, a part of your creative voice dies a little bit. Yeah, and you have to really be protective of that. And that's why I went to workshops like yours to remind myself I am a writer, I and I want to be a poet. I want to dive into poetry more. So I I set my focus, you know. But it's so important, and you really due diligence, being able to question the work. Sadly, and we're gonna talk more about this in our upcoming event at Yale University in September, about honoring our authorship, our voice, our memory, especially at a time in the industry where the the stories that get published or the most provocative body of literature that gets published is usually the most that are riddled with trauma and the most uh compelling, you know, really horrific story. And we, you know, we understand that for a long time, many of our poets of color, our writers of color, that that transformative writing has has saved them, right? But there comes a point where publishing houses only will attract people with the most challenging of stories because they don't want mainstream uh coming from us. And guess what? We have, I just want to write about my grandmother's uh poetry. I just want to write about flowers. I want to write about what it felt like to visit my ancestral home. And guess what? There wasn't any drama exactly those moments we we we deserve to. And sadly, many of these larger publishing houses are only going to keep those manuscripts on their desk. Anything else, they just throw it by the wayside. So your work is so important because it reminds writers that there is a future space for them, and not only in being fed through your nonprofit, but as well as being a part of the Casa de Maria Publisher writing community. Now, for someone who's listening right now who feels called to write, but is probably feeling unsure where to begin, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 51:39

Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna answer that and I'm also gonna and gonna speak on what you just said about writing about delight because you struck a chord in me. And um I wanna make sure that people understand you don't have to write trauma all the time. That is so important. I'm glad you brought that up because there is a poet called Ross Gay who wrote a book of delights, and it's beautiful and it's pleasant, and people really gravitate towards it. And I just want to make sure that people understand that the book of delights for people of color exists, yes, you know, Ross Gay's. We have many delightful moments and experiences we have many delightful moments and and hilarious moments, and maybe what's pressing to your chest is a delightful moment, so um it's important to get those out, right? Um I just had to bring up Roskey's book, The Book of Delights, because I read it and it is the book of delights. There's no you know, there's no traumatic incident, it's it's a lot of gardening and fruit and food and and things, and and and I I think those are such valuable stories to tell.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Um and maybe someone's feeling called to write about delights, or being called to write about you know their funniest teaching moments, or being called to write about life as a New York City train conductor, and the irony of what is being witnessed every day, or someone who works at a school cafeteria and has had to see, you know, children who are hungry and still have a safe space here in that school, and how how it felt to create relationships with that young person and how the custodian and the cafeteria staff are kind of like the surrogate parents of this young person. You never know. So many beautiful, delightful moments, moments that remind us of the human condition, our humanity. Yes. Um, and so I love that you're telling folks that are called to write, just get it out there.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

Listen, you're gonna write, I'm gonna give you a perfect example. I'm currently doing a 30-30. If you don't know what 30-30 is, April is poetry month. And what a lot of poets do is they'll write one poem a day for the whole month. I have tried this before and quit because it is not, it is not as glamorous.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Think about the discipline, I think.

SPEAKER_00 54:12

Yeah, I've tried it before and I've quit. Um, it's been too much because I had I also had other a whole entire career that took up a lot of my um just physical energy. Right. Um, now I'm in a different career space, so I have a lot more physical energy, I'll have more mental energy. If you've ever taught in elementary school, you know that you are your energy is compromised on a daily basis. You're performing for eight hours straight. So it is exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

You're in the parking lot and you're tapping the top of your car going, I tap out, I tap out. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:44

You're taking naps during lunch rather than eating because your your body is like, we are we we can't handle this much stimulation. So it was very hard for me to do that. But this year, because again, my situation just energetically has has shifted, I I I sought out a group of of five other women, um, very diverse, and we do it online, uh, just very simple, nothing crazy, nothing stressful. So I've been doing palm a day, and some days it's a haiku, and some days it's a Which don't sleep. Haikus can be complex. Don't sleep, haikus can be complex. I got a series of haikus and burn me back that I was like, how do I do this? Fire. But some days it's a haiku, and some days like last night. Last night I I was trying to get to bed early so that we can have this and I can be all fresh-faced and bushy-tailed, you know, cute. No, I ended up getting really down this rabbit hole of what I wanted to write about. And it was funny because I came to a point in the poem where I was like, this doesn't resonate with me. And it sounds it was a point of trauma. And I said, This doesn't need to be here. Um I'm just gonna tell you the title because I really like the poem, but the title is The Devil Doesn't Wear Prada, and I'm talking about what were the points, pain points there? But if the devil doesn't wear Prada, but I was I was reflecting on how we tend to be our own enemies sometimes. But there was one line that really I couldn't sit with it, I couldn't send it to my peers because I felt like it was unnecessary trauma. And that's why I removed it and I shifted it and I turned it into something else. Because the whole point of the poem is talking about the devils that we carry. We always say God lives in us, right? And Tosaki Shangh says, I found God in myself and I loved her, I loved her fiercely. And Tosaki Shangh was one of my poetic, you know, heroes and and and a point in my constellation that I turned to. But I think there's also a devil in us, right? The good and the bad. I strongly believe we have good and bad in us.

SPEAKER_01 56:49

The naysayer in us, right? What happens cancels what we want to create immediately without even finishing.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

Yeah, and and part of the program Altar to Altar is talking about that, about your what people call the devils, or what people call the fears, or it's personifying them and setting them down and really realizing they're not there to really harm you. They're there to kind of protect you because they're trying to keep you safe, right? Fear is trying to keep you safe. Um, but this devil that people like to say, like, you the devil made me do it. It came from me watching a movie where this person kept saying, The devil made me do it, right? This is where I get inspiration. Everything, everything around me. Everything.

SPEAKER_01 57:29

Well, we gotta be careful around you because just like comics, family members of comics, they always get a little nervous because they draw inspiration from the personalities.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

So I'm just well, let me tell you, my first ever Brio Award in poetry, where I got unrestricted, uh beautiful monetary award from the Bronx Council of the Arts was a performance piece video that I wrote in response to um people, uh, men, boys not dating me in college. The title is super long. It's called To All the Boys in College Who Decided Not to Date Me after Finding Out I Was a Single Mother.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

And that poem was a response to all that, to all that.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

But that's what you carried in that moment. Yeah, and you and you claimed it. And that that is the power of your work with your nonprofit to be able to support writers to say, this is what you carry, this is what you can claim for you. And I'm excited to hear more about Altar to Altar, but I love that you're doing your due diligence and you're also sometimes I believe ideas need an incubation period. They need a space to sit. Um, I know that for us, uh, being able to do the webinars and being able to get to a space where we offer free content, we grappled with what do we put out there. And so it was mainly based on the feedback we were getting from folks who were saying, What were their what were their frustrations in the writing journey? And I feel like you have really addressed a lot of those for our future poets. I love that. 30 poems in 30 days, you have an accountability network, you have someone, and it like you said, no stress, right? So you guys have touch points with each other. Of course, you're dealing with pain points, right? In your writing. And you by by the way, when you chose to change the poem, was it for you or was it for your audience?

SPEAKER_00 59:33

No, it was for me. I don't write for a particular audience unless, unless I am commissioned to do so purposefully. If I am commissioned from an organization or by an organization for by a person that wants a specific thing, then yes, of course, that is important. I do not like when I go to places and I'm performing alongside other people and they don't pivot. I am a person who I walk into a space, I may have a completely set plan. I got four poems, this is what I was hired to do. And I walk in a space and I realize, oh no, this is not gonna work here. This is not gonna work. Um, I will have six other poems in the back just in case. Why? Because I find that if I I could push through and read those six poems, but is it gonna leave the impact that I want to leave? Me. But when I write, I do not do that for an audience. I write for what it is burning through me that I have to get out. That title, The Devil Wears Prada. I was watching a commercial for The Devil Wears Prada, the movie that's coming out, and I was like, devil doesn't wear Prada. What is and then I started prompting myself like I would another person. What would the devil wear? And where the hell does this devil live? And what are we doing? And how does that relate to what I've written for Alter to Altar? Because we don't talk about devils in Altar to Altar, but we talk about those voices.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:02

That and I fear the self-deprecation.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:13

I've heard you tell the writers in your workshop that they will be no self-deprecating comments whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

That's one of my um community agreements in every workshop that I begin. Whether it be fast-paced or slow-paced or a series sequence that that feeds off of each session. There is nothing of that allowed. I do not allow, oh, this is a shitty draft, or this, or I this is It is a beautiful seedling right now that needs to be nurtured. Why would you say that? So for me, I don't write for the audience unless I am commissioned. I've been commissioned in very particular situations where I'm like, oh my god, I have to get this poem out and it has to be about this, or it has to include that, or it's going to be in memorial uh in memorial, right? A memorial poem and a eulogy type, um uh a poem uh that's going to be in service of this social act. So if I have guidelines, then it's different. Then I the yes, you have to think about your audience and and the people who hired you. But if it's you writing for yourself, no ma'am, I'm not I'm not censoring myself, and I'm not gonna compromise my Spanglish or my Spanish word, or I'm not giving you a translation.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

I love that you have such ownership of your authorship and you have given yourself, and I'm sure it's taken time, you know, you've been in this journey, but for a new writer or someone who's just in this space where they're diving into a new genre, you know, I hear the phrase, you know, it's gonna be the title of our upcoming event, What We Carry, What We Claim. What does that mean for you at this particular junction in your life? What we carry, what we claim, what does that mean for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

Some of the things that we carry are not things that we were born with. We carry things that we were given or forced to carry. And we have to decide what part of that is what we claim. So for me, I have I used to write in Spanglish from the beginning of time, and I was always told don't write in Spanglish, nobody's gonna publish your work in Spanglish. Don't use these words or these ideas because nobody that's that's not gonna get you published. That wasn't my concern. I always knew what I claimed was my poems will always find a home. And if I can't find a home, I will build one. Which is why I'm a proponent for self-publishing because I learned the process, I learned how to lay out a book, I learned what it takes to actually build a book from from the first syllable to the last uh page of acknowledgments. That's why I understood when my publisher came to me and said, Well, these poems we can't format. And I said, No worries, I got you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

I got you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:55

So I format.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

You know, I understood the labor that was involved. You would have to hire someone to then format these poems.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

They're beautiful. They're arts, they're it's artwork on page. When I was flipping through your book and read it from cover to cover, I was very impressed with the layout. You know, I think it's so important, right? Especially in self-publishing, to have a guide, to have the services that are angered in professional standards. Because sadly, there is a metric out there. And I believe that as women of color, as uh marginalized writers and underrepresented writers, it's almost like that metric gets up the ante a little higher, and you feel like you're always gonna come short. So I love that you're a proponent for self-publishing and for getting the support to be able to carry, right? And claim and own this is what I'm doing. I'm not letting go of my Spanglish, I'm not letting go of these themes. I'm gonna keep going with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:55

And and self-publishing doesn't mean it has to be subpar. My first book was an experiment and it was a gift to my daughter. It was only 10 poems, and it was 10 poems of our journey together, and I wanted her to read it. It was for her, and then I asked her permission if I could read it to the world. That book has mistakes, it has things missing. It will not change. I will not read it. You gotta change it because it is a time capsule of what we went through. And the purpose really wasn't for the public, it was for me and her to heal. It became the launching pad for my poetic career. But after, thereafter, I I got editors, I had help, I had people who I paid. Charlie Vasquez was one of them who I paid to edit one of my books. So let's be clear that self publishing doesn't mean subpar.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

It doesn't have to mean it doesn't have to. Um if you have the right team with you, the also the community. And that's what our work today for this episode has been about honing in on community, locking arms in community of writers. I think that uh there's images of a writer, and somehow you think they're in a dark room in front of a laptop and and they're like they're hermits and and they've turned off their phone and and they yeah that okay so that happens sometimes but the reality is is that you need community you need you need community you write on your own you write independently but then you need to branch it out into the world and that's important not for acceptance let's that's another thing I claim thank you it's not for acceptance you're not putting your baby in the world so that people can be like oh we like it or we hate it that's not it you're putting it out in the world because it is important to document your life and your talent documenting your life and your talent is what we are here for.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:42

And people who tell oh well you're not gonna get through this gateway you're never gonna be published you're never gonna do this you're not gonna do that listen there's many artists in the visual art world who have passed and then all of a sudden their works are masterpieces. Why did we have to wait till they pass? Yes so lo que me van a dar que me lo den en vida do it while we are alive and that means you have to be brave enough to claim and document your existence through whatever art form it is. For me it is poetry for you Vilma it was memoir you need to and now La Casa de Maria Publishers you need to build your legacy whatever that looks like and people get scared of the word legacy because they think something big and grandiose. Legacy could be just you creating a scrapbook from your family for your family to look at and have when you go on into your next dimension they'll be like this is what they left us right legacy can be you creating Casala Maria publishers legacy could be that book I wrote for my daughter with 10 poems legacy can be my granddaughter who is now writing poems oh my god who move who move things in people you heard her poem and it was like good lord I was I was floored. Yes I was so impressed that's legacy and what I love about this legacy work Peggy is that it's about not only right lifting others up but removing the gates the barriers enough of the gatekeeping and and everyone kind of keeps the success a secret and people say well what's in it for you you know what what does that look like on the uh on on the on the on the ledger you know you know what it looks like it looks like my ancestors receiving me in the next dimension going thank you for speaking about me thank you for saying my name thank you for telling about my rocking chair and my stories thank you for putting my name in a book when I couldn't write I was illiterate but you wrote me in that's what that looks like that's what that looks like that's what that looks like to me and to you we are writing in the people who are even today look at uh how we are being erased our books are banned our books are burned in a celebratory ceremony because we are so damn scary we are so damn scary that you gotta ban our books and this legacy work is tied to that purpose that is right right to not be erased that's right to be in a space where we hold record correct and guess what we are the record keepers no one's keeping records of us no no no one's keeping record of us so we have to do it and it it I'm telling people make it seem like it's so impossible because we have been trained to stay small I'm a four foot eleven woman and I walk in a room like I own it because I did not come witness to this I did not come here you are not playing I did not come here if if if my ancestors and and and and my spiritual guides and God picked me to be a big mouth and I'm gonna be the biggest boca grande that I can be I I I always say magic making is not for pendejas magic making is not for suckers because you have to fight those I bought the bag I have the button yes it's real this is yours say it again magic making is not for pendejas you cannot live in a place where you are told I was told always you are so small you're so little even to this day when people try to be little me you're so little but I walk big bitch like I am not here to live a small life no and if that means I gotta create with my hands with my own two hands I gotta create books and experiences and workshops and models and and online places to publish people and anthologies I've created two anthologies of women writers um the second well the first one being the Abuela Stories project and the second one being Mujeres the magic the movement and the muse and those were all women who majority had never been published before holding a book with your name and your words in it is impactful. So for me if my life is a a series of impactful moments right that that that blip the matrix right major blip major major and and find ways to to you're bending you're like you're like that that the the Keanu bending backwards the matrix that's my husband's favorite movie for a reason right yeah I think that we have to get out of this conditioning that well I'm too old to do this or I'm or it's gonna take me too much money or it's gonna or my voice is not that important or it's not that loud or I've never been on a microphone. This is why open mics are important. This is why workshop spaces where you share are important. This is why going to those places where you think it's not important to you, let me tell you my one experience with my first book again 10 poems written for my daughter thought it was just for us people kept asking me to read from it because they were like you need to read these poems I went to NYU I was invited to an NYU for a poetry program and I I had no idea who the audience would be didn't know whether there would be women of color any I didn't know anything. I just showed up with faith something told me go. And I was in a room with more than a hundred Jewish little old ladies and I said oh I don't know if these poems are gonna resonate I'm so glad you didn't pivot. No I went yeah and I read poems from that little 10 book self-published chapbook and a woman came up to me I will never forget this she came up to me I will not say her name because she was adamant that it was our private conversation but I will tell the context of it she came up to me and this is me brand new poet you know in the world claiming poet claiming carrying and claiming it yes um she comes up to me and she says you know the poem that you wrote about being a teen mom and being heavily abused and people not understanding that because they see you as a statistic I said yes she said that's me she said that was me and this is a Jewish little woman we have very different lived experiences.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:47

It's a universal thread that tied your hearts together it was like a red string of love humanity um and guess what in that moment she did not feel erased. She didn't her moment mattered her experiences mattered and you reminded her yeah and who knows maybe very quietly she was carrying that but wasn't ready to claim it and who knows what you might have sparked in that audience member to be able to it was bring that to a fold.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:17

Incredible where she was like that story was my story never in a million years would I have said that that woman and I had a common thread she came from a completely different generation a completely different lived experience completely different family background she said that was me and I was we broke into tears because we were both like you see me and I see you and it was just a moment that I said these this little 10 poem book is going to move people and it did and I ended up donating a bunch of them to homeless shelters uh to women's uh domestic violence shelters I did a lot of readings in those spaces because they had so much to write about they needed that transformative space to it was it was tough and although I have evolved from that space given the time now that we're living in I'm constantly asked to go back to that moment and share poems about that in different spaces and I have to be very delicate with myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:17

Right self-care is important you know you have to listen to your body this work is about almost literary shape shifting. Yes you have to be in that space ready but I will tell you and you are a beautiful reminder of this being here in Bodinkang being able to have that encounter where we connected and now we're just like joining superpowers in terms of right encouraging each other holding each other accountable. I feel like that's what community does community for a writer is what they need. And I think isolation in isolation or fear is your kryptonite and we have to be very careful we need to tap into those different circles because community is where it all kind of pulls through yeah but we also also finding the right community because I've been in communal spaces and writing retreats where my work was not valued, not encouraged.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:14

I will never forget my experience at a retreat that I paid a lot of money for that I was very excited about when I got there I got into my circle everybody was divided into these circles that you would spend the rest of the five day retreat with and my circle we're writing about birds and sky delights at all delights not even it was I don't even know it was landscape poetry it was landscape poetry it was it was a it was landscape poetry and frastic poetry about art everyone was so scared to show who they were it was all exterior writing what I call exterior writing which is out there I'm I'm observing out there I'm witnessing out there things on the surface yeah yes and here I come with my body of work which I submitted to get into this retreat and my body of work is very personal and very you know charged with with different kinds of energy and I remember sharing and I heard from this one particular woman your work is disturbing and I said what so not this you gotta find the right community you have to write find the right community that's gonna nurture challenge you but nurture you challenge you and nurture you because you don't need we don't need that all that your work is disturbing and guess what the work that she calls so disturbing that experience did halt my writing again I wasn't ready to claim anything I wasn't ready to I that was something I carried for two years. I did not write a word I could not finish certain projects I felt so defeated leaving that retreat because everything I shared they didn't find any value in so when I left there this wonderful uh poet uh Thomas Fukaloro who comes to a lot of my poem poetry uh workshops and he's based in Staten Island he said Peggy send me poems I'm doing an anthology I really want you to be included and I said all I have is these poems man and you're already feeling like and I was already feeling the mustard yes and he said no I need you to send me some work and he I sent him this poem called Swelter and he published it on the spot he was like this is the one I want the one that they found disturbing which you want to know what was so disturbing? My mother working in a sweatshop.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:25

Wow they couldn't identify they couldn't connect and community is about connecting like I mentioned earlier locking arms even in those most uncomfortable moments that role of that writer in that moment was to hold space with you and she didn't do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

I think it's also important to have community norms it is dangerous to call on community and then not have any kind of normative values that anchor the space in respect right if so we would say an agreement an understanding that because in the spirit of creation this is how we thrive if these norms are in place. Yeah why are you gonna put me in a circle now it's dangerous for my well-being because you don't have any norms you don't have anything we can commit to you don't have anything common ground uh that we can say okay I checked this I'm with that it was too free for all for me yeah a little too kumbaya yeah a little too free for all you need structure in certain respects especially establishing those agreements and those norms I think yeah especially when what everyone is carrying and claiming I'm sorry but it you're bringing forward ancestral blessings that are being revealed and promises being released and it's so sad that people are not seeing the value of that work.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:42

Yeah and uh you you've you've been true to yourself Peggy as a writer you've been true to community carving out spaces that honor the next generation of writers and I can't wait to hear you speak at our author panel in September at Yale University's Dwight Hall. Man bring it it's gonna be amazing I want to just thank you for carving out the time today in your writing schedule because this is your creative season so I I I don't take this time for granted and I want to thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:18

Are there any closing words that you have for our audience I am going to say that again if you do not write yourself in they will make sure that you are gone and many of us everybody is a natural born storyteller I say this and people go no not me I don't know how to do that I'm not a good storyteller I said have you lied to your mother if you've ever lied to your mother you are a story creator if you've ever lied to your lover or your partner you are storyteller if you've ever lied at a job you're a storyteller so everybody is born a storyteller every child I ever encountered in my teaching practice is a storyteller and what the difference is again going back to what we carry and what we claim we carry sometimes these voices that are not ours that tell you don't say that because that's not good for your sake there's no value in your words why are you embarrassing the family by telling all our secrets those are all the things that we end up carrying that are not ours.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:26

So I need people to claim their voices claim their stories tell it in whatever way you want a storytelling session like a piece of art in a collage it could be a poem it could be a fiction it could be a memoir any kind of art form you must it is imperative because we are living in times where we are banned and erased so please claim the storyteller in you claim that little liar bring it because that little liar got things to say I love it the bottleneck wow thank you thank you so much and as we close today's conversation I just want to return to what we have been holding light to throughout this whole episode that writing is not something we do alone it is shaped in community writing is strengthened through practice it is carried forward through spaces that allow us to listen to reflect and to return to the page with greater clarity and intention and today Peggy you reminded us that writing needs something of us it asks for honesty it asks for ritual and it asks for a willingness to stay with the work even when it's difficult and even when the path is not fully clear. And yet what also becomes clear is that we do not have to do that work in isolation these are spaces these their communities their spaces where all of this will be nurtured and held and everything is not going to be perfect. Like look what happened with your manuscript and you may not feel fully ready but the time is now ahora so begin where you are return to that page and seek out those spaces where your work and your your contribution is going to be held with care and and good intention and so we are excited to be able to share Peggy's work through Robeless Writing Productions on our contributor page along with other additional details about her initiatives and the ways that you can connect with her through her website and social media handles. These spaces exist to support your growth as writers and in ways that are thoughtful, intentional and rooted in community your story carries meaning and we're so happy that we got to hear Peggy's story today her journey what she decided to carry and what she's deciding to claim atrevidamente You're not alone in this process writers we're here waiting for you much devoin hasta luego thank you for spending this time with me I invite you to explore our three webinars