Christine Kandic Torres: On Finding Your Community, the Benefits of Fellowships, the Nuance of Internalized Misogyny, and Her Debut Novel “The Girls in Queens”
Christine Kandic Torres’ new novel, The Girls in Queens, follows two Latina girls, Brisma and Kelly, from their childhood in Queens to young adulthood. Growing up in the shadow of Shea Stadium, their friendship rides the rollercoaster of puberty and years later faces the ultimate trial when their childhood friend, and Brisma’s ex-boyfriend, is facing a sexual assault charge. The charge forces both women to revisit their shared history and ultimately choose a side. This debut explores the depth of female friendships and the impact of sexual assault allegations within communities of color with nuance and heart.
I spoke with Torres about her advice for debut authors, the importance of a community, her writing practice, and the importance of writing about complex issues.
Katie Iser: Thank you again for taking the time to talk today. And congrats on publishing a debut novel. That's so awesome. Congratulations.
Christine Kandic Torres: Thank you. Yeah, it's a big deal, I guess. I finally let myself feel it last week. Once the book was published.
KI: That's good. Finally took a deep breath and it's done.
CKT: I mean, yeah, it did feel like a huge relief, honestly.
KI: As a debut author, do you have any advice for other aspiring writers who are looking to publish their first book?
CKT: Well, I'll just say, first of all, it is really hard. Especially for marginalized writers, it is easy to feel demoralized, as you are continuing to try to get representation and to get your book in front of editors. It is super hard, so you're not imagining that. And I think that lots of people have said that community is the most important part of this journey. And I have to echo that too. I think you really have to find other writers who are writing about similar themes, maybe, or writers of similar backgrounds, or just like geographical areas, like anything that you've that you might share in common. Reach out to them, find workshops. There are free workshops, if you look for it. So yeah, I would say reach out and find your tribe. I didn't plan that. But yeah, reach out and find your community. And that's going to help sustain you for the times that are really tough. And to just keep trying. I will also say that you're going to be rejected, and that's okay. Rejection is absolutely the name of the game here. And you just have to be comfortable with that and try not to take that personally. You know, writing is so subjective, reading is subjective. And it'll just take time to get your work in front of the right people who are really excited about your work.
KI: Definitely. So how did you find your own community? Was it through a writing group or friends or workshops?
CKT: So, the first literary journal to publish me as an adult was Newtown Literary, which is a local Queens journal, and also nonprofit organization in Queens, New York. They invited me to read at their issue launch and since then, we started working together. I started helping them coordinate free writing classes for kids and adults at library locations throughout the borough of Queens. And that was an amazing experience and helped me connect with other writers in Queens, and really strengthened my ties locally. I did that. And then I also will say that I also found a community going to artists residencies, which I did not know existed until I was 30 years old. I was working at the time at a religious nonprofit. And they offered sabbatical leave to clergy as well as laypeople. So I read the byline and figured out that I was eligible. And so I applied for a sabbatical to go on my first residency. And it was, it's really life changing to just see that other people were stringing together a life creating art, creating literature and, and then that inspired me to reach out and try to apply for other things. To apply for grants, to pay for residency, and to just to meet other people. I went to Voices of Our Nations Art which is for writers of color, which was also formative. Residency has definitely played a huge role in helping me connect with like-minded writers and to form a supportive network.
KI: Yeah, I think it's so easy to fall for the myth of the writer and buy into complete isolation and doing it all on your own. But it's just so unreasonable and an unnecessary amount of work and pressure you put yourself through when you can have a community of resources and people to support you.
CKT: Absolutely. And I also think that we run a little anxious so it is helpful to have people you can reach out to and be like, hey, is this weird, or am I doing this wrong?
KI: Well, on that note, I know that you've built your community in Queens and spent a lot of your life in Queens as well. How did you blend your own life and experiences growing up in Queens and living in that area with your protagonists? How much of their story reflects your own experience?
CKT: So, the wonderful thing about New York is that it changes all the time. I wanted to write about, like the queens that I had experienced. And so, there are local landmarks and stuff that might not be there anymore, that are in the book. And so, in that respect, I did take, you know, geographical inspiration. And then also, the genesis of this book really started when I was attending a Mets game in 2015. And I had won tickets to a World Series game. And when I was there, I was thinking back to the 2006 team, which was the last time that the Mets had gotten as far as possible to a World Series. And I was a fan at the time, and I had a lot of nostalgia for that team, which was heavily Latino, and wanted to write about that experience. About being like a working-class kid of color, living in the shadow of the stadium in Queens and to see our team, the representative of us, in a way that was being recognized for the first time, and for them to also be playing well, which is an anomaly. And so I worked that aspect of it into the novel. The fandom is definitely present in Brisma and her experience as well.
KI: Definitely. How much additional research did you have to do to create your setting?
CKT: Yes, I did need to go back and research the game, like the specific games that appear in the novel. And so I was reading a lot of baseball references and baseball statistics trying to make sense of that. And then I just ended up having to rewatch some portions of the game. So, I did have to do that. That research was sort of fun. I've referenced it almost as time traveling to Shea Stadium, which is another landmark that does not exist anymore. Now Citi Field. So, I think that the bulk of research is probably landed in the baseball category for this novel.
KI: That makes sense. I love seeing the threads of research writer's follow. Then when you pick your head up it's like, "Oh, how did I end up here?".
CKT: Yeah, I also just needed to get facts straight. Like, when I chose what college, Brian would be playing out, I needed to then research who that college would be playing in the baseball season. I also had to figure out where Janet would have been at school. So, you know, a lot of fact checking research.
KI: How long were you working on this novel?
CKT:I mean, overall, I say the novel was written, more or less five years. So, I had the idea in 2015, that's when it first started coming to me or that's when I first realized that I had a novel length idea. Combining the baseball nostalgia of that 2016 with my fascination with women, especially women who have survived sexual assault defending violent men. I figured that I did have a longer story to finally tell versus the short fiction that I'd been writing up until that point. And I also became pregnant at the beginning of outlining the novel and sort of set an arbitrary deadline that I wanted to get the first draft of the first big messy draft of the manuscript out before my son. And I think I more or less made that deadline. And, and so I was working on the messy part of the manuscript for maybe three years before finally signing with my agent. And then it was another year, I believe, until we sold the manuscript.
KI: Yeah, it takes a long time. I think it's important to share timelines like that. It's so easy, especially for new writers, to think that it will happen overnight.
CKT: Absolutely. It absolutely takes a long time. And you know, it can take even longer than that.
KI: I read some of your essays and your short fiction pieces and I really love the topics that you explore of sexual assault and internalized misogyny. I think you explore them so expertly in this book. I think it's not heavy handed. It's complicated and has depth to it. Why do you feel you're so drawn to this subject? I feel like, we all have a subject we are drawn to, and we just can't stop thinking about it and writing about it. Is this how you feel about this topic?
CKT: Yeah. I like talking about this topic, because first of all, it's always going to be happening. Unfortunately, this is an evergreen topic. I also feel like we haven't talked enough about how we are treating and supporting the women in our lives, who will come forward with their own allegations, or their experiences. We don't talk enough about internalized misogyny. That's, that's really why I wrote this novel. I wanted to dial it back and see what happens in young girls' lives or in the lives of women, that changes them and forces them to turn away from sisterhood, from that joy, and towards aligning with power. With the structure of power with the patriarchy and protecting that and upholding that. And so, I'm going to keep writing about that. I also think there's a nuance to this conversation for communities of color too, that maybe doesn't get enough representation yet. When a girl comes forward with her experience and the perpetrator is a man of color, there is that nuance or that attitude of, are you really going to add something more to his unlucky hand? Are you going to make his life even more complicated or make things more difficult for him? And that's a burden upon us. That's an additional burden. I know that that happens with all demographics, but it is a particular talking point that I wanted to introduce. And I wanted the characters to struggle with it too. You know, Brisma defends Brian, when the allegation is made. She refers to it as “Latino predator bullshit”. These characters are aware of the danger of bringing forth allegations to men of color. And it's something that they have to struggle with. It's something that we have to struggle with, too. And I wanted to add that to the conversation.
KI:I really think you do a fantastic job of addressing the nuance and the complexity. I really enjoy seeing Brisma’s thought process because she does originally side with Brian, but then as, you know, evidence accumulates and as she reevaluates her own experiences, you see her mind change, and I think that's reasonable too. We like to deal with absolutes in our society, but stuff like this is very complicated. And I think you did a fantastic job of exploring that gray area.
CKT: Thank you.
KI: Besides your novel you have published short fiction and essay pieces. What is your writing practice like? How do you make room for writing in your life in a regular way, if at all?
CKT:The only consistency is that it is inconsistent. I've come to peace with the fact that I write and stolen blocks of time. My child is in preschool, so it's not yet quite a full day that I get to squirrel away some writing. So oftentimes, it ends up being like, on long weekends, when my husband can take the lion's share of child care that I block off some hours for me to write. In the revision on this novel, there were sometimes that I actually went to a friend's house to dive deep into some of the more challenging scenes to write, because I knew I was just not going to have the physical space, let alone the mental space to dive into a very contentious scene and then pop out and make some chicken nuggets. So, I'm lucky that I have friends I can call upon to share their space. And, yeah, I'll say that the only consistency is that it's inconsistent, but I try to make it you know, I try to make the time, it's important. I know that I am not pleasant when I'm not writing. But I also don't put the pressure on myself that I'm supposed to be writing every day. It's just not going to happen for me.
KI: It’s a very fine balance for everybody. I've never met somebody who said the same thing.
CKT: Right. I also think that there's never a perfect setting to write. So, I scribble in notebooks, I write on my notes app a lot. I'll speak into it while I'm driving. And that counts, right? That counts as writing. Writing down your ideas or if you know what the next chapter is going to be, write that down. All that accumulates towards a novel.
KI: Do you have a project you're working on now?
CKT: I am working on a second novel and what I can share about it is that it revolves around murder in a New England beach town. But I also will say I'm really excited about the prospect of a new short story too. I've really found flash fiction to be very satisfying. You could write a full story in a shorter amount of space and time. So, I'd love to jump into a few of those pools maybe while I'm writing the longer novel as well.
KI: I feel like flash fiction does not get enough attention.
CKT: We have such a short attention span now and we are obsessed, for better or for worse, with the internet and our phone. So, flash fiction makes a lot of sense. It feels like it's the right size morsel or portion to read.
KI: Yeah. Definitely. I've been trying to get my friends who aren't as big into reading. To try flash fiction. It's like, it's so compact, still really satisfying, and there's such a variety.
CKT: And it's usually very powerful, right? You're distilling the work of a longer piece, I feel, into this one- or two-page, powerful piece? I think that's awesome.
KI: Yeah, definitely. What have you been reading recently?
CKT: I'm currently reading Cleyvis Natera's Neruda in the Park, and that's great. I highly recommended it. It is set in a fictional New York City neighborhood and deals a lot with family and gentrification. I highly recommend that and also, I've been very much into the bad motherhood novels that have come. Rachel Yoder's Night Bitch, I think was one of my favorite reads of the last year. The Upstairs House by Julia Fine. They are inspiring me for my own work. And I'm looking forward to reading another Queens author, who's coming out with a novel later in the year. And the book is called Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman, also set in Queens.
KI: I had never been to Queens, so it was fun to get a taste of the setting in this novel. I'd definitely be interested to read more.
CKT: It was important to me to represent the Queens that I had experienced, and that I love in the novel. But I also think that people who grew up here or lived here for any amount of time will get a kick out of specific references in the novel. I also think that Queens becomes, and you tell me if I'm wrong, a sort of stand in for just like any first- and second-generation immigrant community that holds you. So, I really do think that it can still be compelling even if you haven't visited Queens.
Christine Kandic Torres was born and raised in New York City. Her fiction has received support from Hedgebrook, VONA, the Jerome Foundation, and the Queens Council on the Arts, and been featured in publications such as Catapult, Kweli, and Fractured Lit. The Girls in Queens is her first novel.
About the Interviewer
Katie Iser is a project manager and writer living in Baltimore, Maryland. She recently received her Masters in writing from Towson University. She has been published in Ligeia Magazine, Next Page Ink Magazine, and enjoys writing creative nonfiction. In her free time enjoys watching birds, playing video games, and petting her cats.
