What’s your name?
Cecilia Pinto
What have you written?
I have written short fiction, lyric essays, a novella, two novels and poetry, some published, some not.
When do you write?
Hard to say.
Describe your writing routine.
Random.
What do you listen to while you’re writing?
I usually get stuck in a groove and the work is forever informed for me by what I was listening to when I wrote it. Sometimes it’s a complete album, sometimes it’s a single song. I wore out a Eurythmics album on a short story. I did edits on a novel listening to a single song. Recently I have had Waylon Jennings’ version of Lonesome, Ornery and Mean on a loop. It keeps giving.
What are your tools?
For many years my best bud has been a blue Flair pen. At some point they took a rib off the back end of the pen which was a disappointment as I liked to hold it against my teeth there. In any case, always blue, never black or any of their other fancy colors. And I have a pile of beautiful notebooks usually acquired on trips, like one from the Pacific Northwest decorated with leaping fish.
What do you do when you get stuck?
I don’t like to think about this.
Do you do pre-writing or pre-planning?
I do nothing on paper but I usually hear it coming, like a hum or a buzz.
Where do you write?
Mostly on my computer at my desk in my room but not always. I’ve had success at the laundromat.
Any rituals or superstitions?
Yes.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve done to get out of a stuck cycle?
I took a year off.
What is the best book you’ve read lately?
I have to give a shout out to the four Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante. They are brilliant and absorbing. I don’t know if they capture every woman’s experience but they so clearly delineate the experience of their characters that you live and breathe their lives. I’ve read them twice and will read them again.
A book that I read recently that is haunting me is Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. I include here the Chicago Public Library blurb which hardly does it justice: An extraordinary debut novel exploring the metaphysics of identity and mental health, centering on a young Nigerian woman as she struggles to reconcile the proliferation of multiple selves within her. I recommend this!
What is one book you think everyone should read?
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishiwaka and others. While some of the ideas here may have become second nature or are perhaps a little out of date, the central idea, that the spaces and places we create affect us profoundly and that there are ways to do this right, is an important one. Wouldn’t we all like a central piazza to meet each other in? Wouldn’t it be better if our elderly lived in proximity to our young so they could learn from each other?
What are you looking forward to?
My next trip to the library.
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