quarterly conversations

lisette garcía
...a conversation with la fictionista...

Both La Fictionista and her growing body of page and stage work are products of my imagination. I am Lisette García, founding director of El Solar arts house, "where truth & beauty blossom" (per Keats), and mother of 8-year-old visual artist and voracious reader Justice Smith.

In a former life—before my hair was short and my bank balance shorter—I was a journalist, pulling yearish stints as a staff writer or editor at The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and the world headquarters of The Associated Press.

Before that, I was a Tupperware lady. Before that, I was a Marine.

No, not a marine mammal. An American warrior. Yes, the kind who served in the Gulf War where it was so hot—how hot?—so hot that I dreamt one night in a tent just outside Port Al-Jubayl that killer spiders—which were, in fact, continuous globs of outpouring sweat—were attacking me. Still asleep, I scraped my face into hamburger.

That is not why I am today severely pockmarked, but the incident probably didn't help my troubled complexion.


Why did you start performing your narrative fiction?

I write mainly about peasants and blue-collar folk like my father, who are among the least likely in society (US & elsewhere) to be comfortably literate in Spanish or English (the languages in which I write) or enjoy ample access to the Internet, where for environmental and spiritual reasons I prefer to publish. Not presenting my stories in a format the working poor could apprehend easily felt a little like gossiping about a dear neighbor. So, I stopped that by starting CUENTOS LIBRES @ viernes culturales, a bilingual street-side storytelling series. The year-long public reading campaign of 150-word stories in Spanish and English was concluded in June 2002.


Where did you come up with a name like La Fictionista?

Exile politics is Miami's stock in trade. ¡Comunista!, ¡fascista!, and ¡socialista! were common accusations flung about in the still-fresh pain of the 1970s, also my formative years. It was important then to declare where you stood--and to a lesser extent remains so--in terms of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro; in becoming La Fictionista, I essentially rejected all non-poetic factions and their itinerant labels.


What is El Solar?

In the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, a solar is a public housing project, usually built as round towers with a concrete patio in the center. The design allows for little airflow and means one side of the stifling building bakes all day while the other exists in constant darkness. Additionally, overcrowding ensures that tenement residents display more than fresh-washed laundry in the shared commons.

The irony is that our place, El Solar, is a jewel of a home. Yet, its diligent leadership and faithful participants envision it as the center of theater in Miami.

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Lisette's work can be found at Miami Stories, storySouth, and Outsider Ink. Her  flash fiction story "Blind Spot" was published in the June 2002 edition of insolent rudder, and her story "Havana Club" will be seen in the November 2002 edition. El Solar, "where truth & beauty blossom," is located at 356 Malaga, Coral Gables, FL, 33134. RSVP: 786.326.6884. Website: http://groups.msn.com/ElSolar.