Juliana Delgado Lopera: My Writing Starts in Drag

Juliana Delgado Lopera is this week’s special Sunday guest. Their latest book, Fiebre Tropical, is now available from The Feminist Press.

From the episode:

Juliana Delgado Lopera: I just go all the way with the makeup. I do like really big looks, and I deliver whatever I need to do—and I do that at night, too. I think the influence of the nightlife is also in my own work. I’ve been figuring out well, why do we have to keep this only to the bar? These looks are amazing, you know, but it’s really reserved for a specific moment.

I try to bring it out of that moment into other places and other areas of my life, because it brings me so much joy and it’s such a huge part of who I am. Dressing up is such a huge part of who I am, and doing my face is such a huge part. I think that especially right now, those things are crucial for me to stay grounded. … That whole self-expression and dressing up is very, very important to my work, and it seeps into my writing.

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Juliana Delgado Lopera‘s other books include Quiéreme (Nomadic Press 2017) and ¡Cuéntamelo! (Aunt Lute 2017), an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories by LGBT Latinx immigrants which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award. Their work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Teen Vogue, The Rumpus, The White Review, LALT, Four Way Review, Broadly, Time Out, and more. They live in San Francisco.