If anyone is living her best life, it’s Gabby Rivera.
The American Latina queer artist from the Bronx not only authored the stirring, 2016 semi-autobiographical young-adult novel, “Juliet Takes a Breath,” she also penned the 2017–18 Marvel comic book “America,” about superhero America Chavez, making Rivera the first-ever Latin queer woman to enter the Marvel universe. She’s also an esteemed speaker who’ll visit Philly’s Parkway Central Library Sept. 27 for Penguin Books’ re-release of “Juliet Takes a Breath.” Some responses have been condensed.
PGN: Which did you realize first — that you are gay or an incredible writer?
GR: So you’re basically asking me when did I realize I was a gay writer nerd? Or like, which came first the dyke or the words? This is probably the best question ever — ’cuz both. I mean, books were my whole entire world as a kid. I grew up in an Evangelical Christian household. My parents were super strict, and I wasn’t allowed to do anything fun or cool. So, I read all the books. I’ve kept a journal since I was a kid, always writing everything down. Even after my mom found and read my journals, I still kept them. Journals were where I admitted liking girls for the first time. It all really crashed wide open with HBO’s “Gia.” And I was like wow, I have my sexual feelings for this new actress Angelina Jolie, am I going to hell? Where are those blank tapes so I can record this on the sneak before church. But I took my love of writing seriously — inside my heart — when I was 17, the same time I accepted myself for being a whole, happy, excited baby dyke. Something happened then, and I don’t even really have words for it, but I know that up until I was 17, I was terrified, just like my mom was, about going to hell. And then one day I was like no, dude, if you really believe that God is all-loving and infinite, then this is exactly how God wants you to be and everyone else is just bugging.
PGN: What is your relationship to mentoring (which you write a lot about)?
GR: Mentorship at its core is beautiful and such a healing and elevating experience. Power and privilege have f—ed up the beauty of the concept. People like to use their power and experience to do all sorts of shady stuff to folks, especially women, femmes, nonbinary folks, to people of color. So for me, mentorship blossomed with folks who were actively seeking to dismantle all that gross power/white supremacist/patriarchal crap and build new beautiful spaces for development. When I was first coming up as a poet/writer in New York, I was welcomed and fully embraced by the New York City Latina Writers group. I just showed up at one of their meetups in Harlem, and there were like 20 Afro-Latina, Latina, women of the Caribbean diaspora, all there writing their spirits and lives. And what a homecoming. Their mentorship was lighting candles with intention, serving plates of food, and cracking jokes ’til midnight. It came with love and deep compassion. And also, these humans were about their business. We wrote our a–es off and shared our writing with each other.
PGN: When did you feel comfortable enough to speak the truth of who you are?
GR: Is that what I’m doing? Listen, my mom raised me to tell the truth. And even when that truth hurt her, she’s still always encouraged me to tell it. Writing fiction helps. I can process all this truth and ache in fresh ways. Throw in some soft love where there might have just been shards of glass, you know? It all goes back to rooting in community for me. I’m not that brave alone, not many of us are, but when I’m surrounded by people who love me and themselves, I’m a beam of f—ing powerful light magic. An ultralight beam. And why lie? I mean, look I’m a human being so of course I lie and f–k up. But big lies? No. Everyone is feeding us sick lies about the history and fabric of America, and it’s time to stomp that out forever. They’re lying about climate change and look at all the teenagers ready to light their lies on fire. That’s the real wave. Truth. Action. Reconciliation.
PGN: What do you remember about creating America Chavez? What hero did you want her to be?
GR: I just wanted America Chavez to have fun and go on wild adventures. I was learning on the go with her too. I’d never written a comic before, and it was such an incredible challenge. I wanted her to have love, support, a family. Things she didn’t have. Her moms had sacrificed themselves to the universe, so when I got the chance to write for her, I had to give her a grandma. Had to offer her mentors like Storm and put her in Sotomayor University so there was a foundation of support coming from all over. America Chavez doesn’t have all the answers. She gets scared and lonely; sometimes her temper gets the better of her. But at the end of the AMERICA series, she’s got Madrimar, her grandma. She’s been to the Ancestral Plane and has learned the history of her people. And she knows that she’s enough. That’s all we ever need anyway.
PGN: What’s next for you?
GR: I’m gonna write more comics. I’ve got a new original series coming out with BOOM! Studios in December titled “b.b. free.” b.b.’s fifteen, ready to take on the world, and secretly manifesting cosmic powers that turn a road trip with her best friend into an epic eco-divine adventure! b.b. and Chulita take on the Fractured States of America, healing polluted earth and ocean while still just trying to figure out what it means to be 15.
PGN: You talk about Lolita Lebron, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member who opened fire on the House of Representatives. Do you consider yourself radical?
GR: We’ve strayed so far from reality that when someone writes a fact, it’s considered a radical act. Lolita Lebron was brought into Juliet’s story because Juliet is researching women who’ve been erased from history. Lolita Lebron was a Puerto Rican nationalist fighting for a free Puerto Rico. And you’re d–n right she fired shots in the House of Representatives, but that was because the U.S. was basically extorting Puerto Rico for resources while making it illegal to be Puerto Rican, while secretly sterilizing our women and girls, using Puerto Rican land for military purposes. All that horrific stuff that’s just washed away. Juliet reads the “Ladies Gallery” which is a real book written by Lolita Lebron’s granddaughter Irene Vilar, so tell me what is so radical about that? Juliet, just like every single queer kid of color deserves to see her people at their most real and heroic. She deserves Joan of Arc, Rosa Parks, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and a Lolita Lebron, you know?
PGN: Other than perhaps elements of your own biography, what did it mean to make Juliet so fiercely and markedly independent.
GR: Nothing uplifts me more than meeting women, femmes and nonbinary folks who are full-on in love with themselves. We have the right to revel in our radiance. Take that alliteration and bathe all in it. I wanted Juliet to vibrate with self love. I wanted her to drip in love with her thick body, brown skin, nerdiness and the world around her. We deserve that. We as in all the thick queer Puerto Rican baby dykes, all the fat juicy queer rebel Black Indigenous People of Color, and all the folks who want to move with big love in a world that’s so full of hard aches. Juliet is for us. She is for herself. What would Juliet say to the new moment? What all of us should always say. What Boriquas have been saying for generations: Pa’lante, siempre pa’lante.