We chat with author Carolina Ixta about her debut novel Shut Up, This Is Serious, which is an unforgettable YA debut about two Latina teens growing up in East Oakland as they discover that the world is brimming with messy complexities.
Hi, Carolina! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m a young adult author from Oakland, California. My family is originally from Mexico. I studied creative writing and Spanish language at UC Santa Cruz, then got my master’s in education at UC Berkeley. I like to write realistic stories about young, Latina women, which is what led me to write my debut.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Definitely when I was a kid. I began writing stories when I was eight and would carry a notebook around the playground to write during recess. I immersed myself in reading and fell in love with realistic fiction. I wrote competitively in elementary school and later in high school– high school is when I knew I wanted to make writing my life’s journey. When I decided that, I kept my head down and kept working. It took a while to get here, but we did it.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The first book I remember reading was The Sweetest Fig. It made me hate the dentist. My friend Sharon is gonna become a dentist soon, so I’m hopeful to get over that fear when she’s working on my teeth.
- The one that made you want to become an author: Probably The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. I vividly remember reading it when I was eleven and thinking: you can write things like this?
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: I read The Anthropocene Reviewed earlier in the year, and I frequently return to it when I’m feeling down. I’ve memorized excerpts of it at this point.
Your debut novel, Shut Up, This Is Serious, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Real. Critical. Honest. Heartbreaking. Hopeful.
What can readers expect?
I wanted to write a love story about friendship. With that, my goal was not necessarily to write a book that was happy, my goal was to write a book that felt real. I think readers can expect a story about a beautiful friendship and the obstacles these girls face on their respective paths toward womanhood.
Where did the inspiration for Shut Up, This Is Serious come from?
I’ve thought about this question a lot. I think the crux of it all really began with a lot of resentment I’d felt. I grew up in the YA market that was oppressively white, and I had no idea that was a problem until I went to college and read work by Latino writers for the first time.
I was really angry about the lack of stories about people like me in YA, I was embarrassed I’d been writing exclusively white characters unbeknownst to myself, and I felt enormously worried that other young, Latina readers would embark on similar trajectories. So, I wrote with a huge chip on my shoulder. It’s still there. And honestly, I’m grateful to have it, it served and serves a purpose– it pushed me to want to write something meaningful.
I knew that if I was going to sit at the table in publishing, I’d have to have something important to say about intersectional identities. I took those identities and that resentment, paired it with the homesickness I felt in college, added the critical race theory I was being taught in class, and Belén was born.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I love Belén through and through. I had a really good time seeing her grow. I think Ali is an unsung hero in this novel, and his arc really mattered to me. Other than that, I just loved working with the setting of the book. Placing these characters in Oakland felt like being in a time capsule and being on a playground all at once. It was a lot of fun.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
It’s my debut, but not my first. I think this book was my seventh attempt at the novel writing form. My road to becoming an author began with being a voracious reader. As mentioned earlier, I wrote competitively in school. I worked with the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for three years in high school, each time writing for the novel writing category. After that, I went to university to study writing and experimented with form– instead of writing novels, I was writing a lot of short stories, flash fiction, poetry, prose poetry, and memoir.
But, I think a large part of being a writer, for me, was also not writing. It was being a student– and a good student. I practically triple majored in college and was constantly reading and going to office hours. Everything I learned in my other fields of study– Spanish language, ethnic studies, educational theory– helped form the backbone to my work.
I think I was only able to return to the form of the novel after I felt satiated with being a student. When I graduated from graduate school in 2019, I felt ready to dip my toes back into novel writing. I was working on a manuscript the summer of 2019 when I went on a writing residency, but gathered a lot of wisdom and insight on that trip. A few months later, I scrapped that manuscript and began writing Shut Up, This is Serious. I applied to Las Musas mentorship program and was paired with the best mentor, Raquel Vasquez Gilliland. She helped me refine my manuscript before generously referring me to her agent, and the rest is history.
What’s next for you?
A sophomore novel that is very, very different.
With it being the new year, are you setting any goals or resolutions for 2024?
Read more and read widely. Listen to more music. Memorize more poems. Go to more museums. Dress better. Always, generally, just nourish myself with more art and more learning.
Lastly, are there any 2024 book releases that you’re looking forward to?
Theophanies by Sarah Ghazal Ali, Woke Up No Light by Leila Mottley, Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, and There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraquib.
