Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton go in-depth with Rubén Degollado, author of the novel The Family Izquierdo, which started out as a short story collection about a single family.
Degollado's story “The Seven Songs” was featured on last week’s episode, and he discusses his journey to writing and publishing the book, as well as how he navigated his writing journey alongside his career as an educator. He first started writing the Izquierdo family stories in the late '90s, eventually developing the family curse and tensions, and playing with point of view to inhabit the lives of the many family members.
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Degollado aims to represent his own family, experiences, and community through The Family Izquierdo, and he quotes Toni Morrison, who said “if there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
“A lot of the stories I read were about immigrants, and I think those are great stories. I love immigrant stories, but that’s not what I wanted to write. I wanted to write about what happens after. What happens post immigration.”If you haven't already, be sure to listen to last week's episode featuring Degollado's story, “The Seven Songs.”
Reading List

"The Seven Songs" by Rubén Degollado (Ursa Short Fiction, Season Two, Episode 15)


The Family Izquierdo (W. W. Norton)


The Family Izquierdo audiobook (Blackstone Publishing / Downpour.com)


The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison)


Throw (Rubén Degollado)


"A Temporary Matter" (Jhumpa Lahiri)


Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (ZZ Packer)


Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri)


Sabrina & Corina: Stories (Kali Fajardo-Anstine)


The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)


The World Doesn't Require You (Rion Amilcar Scott)


Brownsville (Oscar Casares)

Maurice Carlos Ruffin

About the Author Rubén Degollado’s work has recently appeared in Literary Hub, CRAFT, The Common, and elsewhere. His novel Throw won the Texas Institute of Letters Best Young Adult book for 2020. His debut literary novel The Family Izquierdo is a long list title for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. Rubén lives and writes along the southern border, in the Río Grande Valley of Texas.
More from Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton:

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)


The Final Revival of Opal & Nev (Dawnie Walton)

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Episode editor: Kelly Araja
Associate producer: Marina Leigh
Producer: Mark Armstrong
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