Kimberly Garza & Xochitl Gonzalez: A Conversation

Kimberly Garza’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Copper Nickel, Diagram, Creative Nonfiction, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. A native Texan – born in Galveston, and raised in Uvalde – she is an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her first novel, The Last Karankawas (Henry Holt and Co.), is set in Galveston, population 50,241. It’s a popular tourist destination, but few stray from the boulevards to Fish Village, home to the people who have powered the island for generations. Carly Castillo’s grandmother claims they descend from the Karankawas, an extinct indigenous Texan tribe, tethering them to Galveston. But as Carly ages, she begins to imagine a life elsewhere. Jess, her boyfriend, is an all-star shortstop-turned-seaman who treasures the salty, familiar air. He’s had chances to leave Galveston, but  he didn’t take them then and he sure won’t take any now. But as a storm gathers strength offshore, building into Hurricane Ike, each Galveston resident must decide to either board up the windows and hunker down or flee and abandon their homes. The Last Karankawas is a lyrical, emotionally charged portrait of everyday survival.

Xochitl Gonzalez received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts fellow and the recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship for fiction. She was the winner of the 2019 Disquiet Literary Prize and her work has been published in Bustle, Vogue, and The Cut. She is a contributor to The Atlantic, where her weekly newsletter Brooklyn, Everywhere explores the gentrification of people and places. Her debut Olga Dies Dreaming: A Novel (Flatiron Books) is a New York Times bestseller. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history, it follows Olga and her brother, Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo. Prieto is a popular congressman. Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s power brokers. But behind closed doors, things are far less rosy. Meanwhile, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord turned radical who abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, is facing hurricane season and back in their lives. Olga is a tale that examines political corruption, familial strife, and the American dream – all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.