I continue my visit at Misprinted Pages with Stephanie Carmichael, and we discuss genre confusion,  mislabeling, and sexism...but our conversation is more fun than it sounds.
MP: Your trouble with mislabeling has gone on for a long time. What makes this sort of thing happens, and how does this affect your outlook and how your approach books moving forward?

MA: Part of the mislabeling is my own damn fault. I don’t want to write literary fiction for readers who will appreciate every precious reference to John Milton. I want to reach teenage girls who are sneaking novels into boring classes. I want to connect with other chicas who are figuring out bicultural lives and women who are imperfect but optimistic. I want to entertain snarky grandmas and also those guys who dare to pick up a book by a woman. This doesn’t mean I don’t have allusions to Milton in my books because I totally do. (Paradise Lost in the house!)

I think that I’m part of a transition. I don’t think I’ll ever be invited into the party, but I do think that perhaps I can open doors for others who follow me. I think that if I inspire a few others to follow, or change a preconception of what a Latina is supposed to be, I’ve succeeded.
Read the rest of our conversation and comment!


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