Benjamín Alire Sáenz, author, artist and UTEP professor of creative writing, has explored the vast terrain of desert between the U.S. and Mexico for the better part of 20 years. In a place that is normally depicted as a harsh clime with hard people, Sáenz digs deep under the romance of copper-colored dunes, naked mountains and cacti to unearth the rage, hate and love inside of the very real people who inhabit the border.
Recently, Sáenz was awarded the EPCC Literary Legacy Award, and his exhibit “Words on Paper” was on display for the month of September at the El Paso Public Library. On the eve of the publishing of his 15th book, “Last Night I Sang to the Monster,” Sáenz discusses his thoughts on teaching, writing and the border.
M: In the past you’ve expressed a love/ hate relationship with teaching. Is writing something that can be taught or merely something inherent in a person that can be honed?
BAS: Well I think the answer is a little bit of both. I think that some people are drawn to words and have great facility with words–who are interested in words or are interested in the world–they take writing classes to kind of develop their skill. And so I do think writing can be taught. I think someone can be a really bad writer and become a really competent writer–maybe not a great writer, but a really competent writer because they discipline themselves. I really believe that, for me, writing was 10 percent natural talent, 60 percent discipline and the rest, sheer and utter desire.
M: I’m reminded of Larry Brown, who was in his late 30’s or 40’s before he had touched a typewriter. Formerly a fireman, he always said his earlier stories were, to use his own words “crap,” and after writing six or seven novels, he finally got published. Barry Hannah (the author of “Geronimo Rex” and winner of the William Faulkner Prize) once remarked that writing could be taught.
BAS: I think all of that is true and I believe that you have to really want to do it. I wanted to do this, and I have a lot of discipline when it comes to my writing. I always tell my students that writing is work. I’m not sure they want to hear that. And while they may have talent, that’s not going to mean anything in the long run–not if they don’t sit down and really write and rewrite and become very critical of their own vision and of their own work. A little raw talent will take you almost nowhere.
M: What were you willing to sacrifice?
BAS: For me, it was everything. I think back on my Stanford days and being with the Stegner Fellows, who were my colleagues–fiction writers and poets. In terms of raw talent, I had the least amount of it. I’m probably now the most published because I think I wanted it so badly. And the other thing I think is very important to becoming a writer is can you be alone? A lot of young people can’t be alone. You have to be able to enjoy your own company and not want to run from yourself, because you just have to spend so much time alone.
M: After years of teaching, writing and literature, does it become monotonous for you?
BAS: No, no, it doesn’t. Every class is different–that’s why. I didn’t know that I was going to love teaching–I really didn’t. Students change and the university changes and there’s something about the newness of every semester. That’s the great thing about teaching: every semester is new. I have familiar faces in my classes and faces I’ve never seen before, and over the years, I become friends with a lot of my students. They write to me, I write back to them; they keep up with my writing, I keep up with their lives; it’s nice.
M: Do students renew your interest in material or change the way that you thought about the material before?
BAS: All the time and they teach me things. My students teach me things all the time, and I’m more than happy to learn. They also teach me that language is communal property, so it’s not like trickle-down literature. Language is communal property, you can manipulate that–it’s alive. Students use language in different ways and they don’t need me to approve of the way they speak the English language. I listen to that and that reminds me that language is alive, and so, students renew language for me.
M: You mentioned in an interview that your literary parents were Victorian and Latin novelists with which you could not identify. Do you think it’s important for the development of budding writers in this region that there are now Chicano authors with whom they can identify?
BAS: Yes. It is important. It’s important and it’s crucial in some ways, but it’s not everything either because I think that we need to see ourselves and the possibilities in people who are like us. But I think that we also need to read people and read cultures that are not like us. We need to get beyond ourselves through literature as well.
M: You started your undergraduate career studying humanities and theology, and later became a priest for three and a half years. If you had the concept of possibly becoming a writer since you were young, what sent you on a path away from writing?
BAS: It’s a complicated question and I think that I didn’t know how to become a writer. I wanted to study to be a priest for very complicated reasons
though they didn’t seem complicated to me at the time at all. But I really am grateful for those years because I think they made me into the person that I am. I don’t have any regrets about the past. I don’t think that being a writer is like this kind of very direct route–I think I took the long and scenic route.
M: Your novels seem to capture the El Paso area so succinctly–its people, their mentalities, dialogue. Did this take years to develop—or was it something that came naturally, being that you grew up in the area?
BAS: Capturing it, for me, is a real art because you really have to listen. The written word is like the writers are talking, but you can’t talk on that page if you haven’t listened. You have to have an ear for it. It comes from my father, my mother and my family and everyone around me—you know the talk of the border is fabulous, it’s incredible; we make up words. I love listening to it; it makes me laugh and smile. So, I want to capture that on the page because it’s so real to me.
M: What was your concept for your upcoming young adult novel, “Last Night I Sang to the Monster”?
BAS: It’s about a young boy who is in a facility—a residential treatment center. He’s 18 years old, he’s an alcoholic and the novel is about how he has to remember, but he doesn’t want to remember. He starts off by saying, “Most people have a dog. Not me. I have a therapist. His name is Adam. I’d rather have a dog.” That’s how it begins, and Adam, his therapist, is trying to get him to remember. And Zach keeps saying, “Why would I want to do that?” He wants to become an expert at forgetting… because it hurts so much. It (the book) comes from the fact that there’s a lot of addiction and alcoholism on the border, but particularly in the Mexican-American community. And we need to do something–alcoholism and addiction is real among young people and it’s devastating them. I wanted to write about a young man who is struggling with that.
M: What advice do you offer to students who want to be serious writers; who have that thirst for it?
BAS: Don’t just talk about it. Don’t fall into the romance of being a writer. There’s nothing romantic and there’s nothing glamorous about sitting in front of a computer for hours and hours and hours. Yet, that’s what you have to fall in love with—that, not the other stuff–not the book parties, not the readings. You have to earn it. You have to put in the hours. You have to fall in love with it—not just putting in the time.
It’s a beautiful labor, but you have to see it as a beautiful labor. You have to do it because it’s the air you breathe. It’s like what William Carlos Williams said about writing: “It’s either that or the bullet.”