AWP21—Vanessa Garcia

F***ing Shakespeare

Vanessa Garcia is a Miami-based novelist, playwright, journalist, and visual artist. Much of her work centers on her Cuban homeland, where her parents and grandparents were born. She is the author of incredible essays you can find all over the web and an immersive theater production called The Amparo Experience. She is the dreamer and 3D printer of so many incredible projects.

Shade Mountain Press saw the beauty in Garcia’s 2015 novel, White Light, which interrogates one of Garcia’s obsessions, color. What if this character was a color? What would it mean if a chapter is cardinal red?

We talk about the inspiration for that novel, as well as her most recent project, a radio play called Ich Bin Ein Berliner. This autobiographical story details her reaction to the fall of the Berlin wall and its rippling effect throughout Cuba. We explode the myth of the solitary writer and the rewards inherent in creating art in a collaborative fabric of creatives.

Honorable Mentions:

• Poet, William Blake

• FAU Theater Lab

• Director and Garcia’s creative partner, Victoria Collado