"I wrote a memoir, Butterfly Boy. It’s my coming-of-age, coming to America, coming out, coming into language book. And it’s still the only one that embraces all of these movements. There have been other Latino memoirs before that, but none have really addressed sexuality, and definitely immigration, at this level. I just finished a book of essays that will be out next year in which I deal with queer issues and race issues and ethnicity/immigrant issues. I find myself placing these thoughts on the page only because sometimes I’m at a loss that I’m not having more conversations like this with other writers. My latest book, Black Blossoms, it’s a book of women. And not even lesbians—it’s a book of straight women. You know, I’m not a woman; I’m not straight. I wanted to write in proximity to these lives because, despite the fact that I don’t identify, they are part of my community. What better way to understand this group than to write about them? What I found when writing about women was that so many of their anxieties were anxieties that I shared."
To learn more about Gonzalez as a writer, finish the interview here. Be sure to also visit us online to get a copy of Black Blossoms.
