LEAGUE INTERVIEW with Ursula Villarreal-Moura

Pop-Up Questions, a Cell Photo Story, and Interview

Purchase LIKE HAPPINESS here

Editor’s Note: I’ve known Ursula in my writing and activism community online for years. She has addressed Latinx issues as a Latinx woman, and was speaking about Palestine before October 7th, when many of us- myself included- did not know much more than the name. She’s always been someone I admire for her steadfast heart for human life, her directness, and her literary talent, but still, reading her new and first novel ( she has a novella, Math for the Self-Crippling, which she did a THE THREE interview for that you can read here! ) blew me away. The voice of a book, if seductive enough, if convincing and self-assured of its own life, can create such a powerful atmosphere that it becomes a memory stamp, an evocation when you recall the work. Ursula has done that with Like, Happiness, and I suggest you read this literary novel, which starts out unassuming, quiet, not particularly emotive or eventful, yet masterful, and as you read you become more and more engaged with the particular life of this mind, so that when you stop reading, you get a little bit of that dazed feeling, as if you’d been underwater.

Ursula Villarreal-Moura was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She is the author of the novel Like Happiness and the story collection Math for the Self-Crippling. Her stories, essays. and interviews have  appeared in Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Alta Journal, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and listed as distinguished in Best American Short Stories 2015. 

POP UP QUESTIONS

The writer picks five out of ten pop-up questions and answers them.

What do you think about when you are awake at 3 am?

Usually I think about emails I need to send, stuff I forgot to tell my doctor or agent. Sometimes I wake up at that hour and think the remainder of my life will be very short. Morbid, I know! 

What book do you wish you could read again for the first time and why?

If it's okay with you, I'm going to answer a different version of this question. I recently read The Autobiography of Malcolm X for the first time. I'm so glad I waited to read it as an adult. As an activist now, the book really had an impact on me.  Malcolm X enters my thoughts almost daily now. 

What is your favorite bit of writer lore or (not harmful) gossip?

I love that Octavia Butler was so determined to succeed that she wrote herself affirmations in her spiral notebook. She wrote: I am a writer. I write. I am a selling writer. I sell what I write. I write to live. I live to write. Her list is much more lengthy than that and I admire it so much. As a woman of color, I am so grateful that she preceded me on this journey. 

What writer romanticized being a writer for you as a young person?

Probably anyone in the UK, particularly Muriel Spark. In middle school, a teacher assigned her work and I thought she was so classy and untouchable.

What music do you love on road trips?

I prefer a mix of loud and languid. Recently we went from Fugazi straight into Beulah. I'd throw in Sublime, Mazzy Star, and on a long trip at some point we'd have to blast "Life is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane. 

PHOTO ROLL STORY

The writer picks a photo from her phone and tells us about it.

I hate flying, but I captured this image recently. It  reminds me of the planet’s deep beauty. It’s an image I’ll likely return to often when I need a mood boost. 

THE INTERVIEW

The writer answers questions about her life and work.

I started your mesmerizing novel, Like Happiness, fairly blind, knowing only the jacket synopsis, which is how I like to go into reading if possible. That openness let me really take in the incredible atmosphere of this novel, one of deep intimacy with the protagonist. It was noticeable how true to life she was, her personality and take on her circumstances was so particular, and her choices always made sense even when they didn't make sense, because of that. How did Tatum's personhood come to you?

I figured out who Tatum was through her actions. She definitely has a core set of beliefs, some of which get challenged, but ultimately her personhood was shaped by what she was willing to tolerate and sacrifice. 

Your protagonist Tatum emailed a famous, much older novelist whose book deeply affected her, and she is thrilled when he writes back. This exchange begins a relationship that spans years, and is told from her point of view as a college student, and as a grown woman. Tatum's own opinion of their relationship as well as my own opinion, as the reader, changes over the book in a magnificently done way. I was really impressed how you worked with these ideas and impressions of power imbalance, personality, cultural norms, etc, so subtly yet acutely. Why did you want to write this story? Can you go a little bit into the kind of stream of awareness or focus that propelled you to write about this subject, these people?

First. thanks for all the kind words about your reading experience. The premise of this story came when I was in graduate school. Almost every single evening a famous writer was giving a reading that I wanted to attend in NYC. I thrilled at the idea of listening to them and talking to them when they signed my books. Writers seemed so hip and cool, powerful because they were just like us but somehow more intelligent or better. I became fascinated with that idea. This was 2011 and 2012,  so years before the #MeToo movement, but I was already thinking about power dynamics and sexuality. I wrote to figure out what I believed about all these power structures. 

What did you know for sure as you began writing Like Happiness, and what surprised you as you finished?

I love this question. I knew I wanted to write a book about books. What surprised me is that when I finished I had actually written a novel. I wasn't sure I was capable of that when I first started. It was a gigantic relief. 

As Tatum's story unfolds, you move between her as a college student in New York, and then as an adult living in South America, her perspective had necessarily changed but you still are able to recognize this character as herself. Did you consciously work on that continuity or think of it, or did it just come? Was this continuity a big part of the editing process?

I wrote the second timeline in Chile entirely in 2022 and 2023 whereas the earlier timeline was written from 2012-2022. I'm glad there was a convincing sense of continuity. I only pulled it off because Tatum was living in my mind for so long. I wouldn't say that I was consciously thinking about it during the editing process. 

Can you tell us a little about the editing process? At what point did an editor enter the fray, and what kind of work needed to be done? 

When the book sold at auction, there was only one timeline with maybe 2 chapters of reflection. The editor who acquired the book advocated that I create an entirely new timeline, which I did in mere months. It tooks a decade to write the book and perfect it to my liking yet I had months to draft and finalize a significant portion of the final version. Talk about anxiety! 

I finished Like Happiness late one night and lay in bed thinking about it for a while until I fell asleep. You have created a beautiful, rich, unique novel that continues to come up in my mind in the weeks after I finished it. The mood you create through setting and personality, tone, works on the reader until it's like a spell you don't want to leave. What are your thoughts on accessing unique voice?

My only suggestion is to trust your unique voice. If you're unable to do that, write in third person. 

I've been following your work for a few years now, and was impressed with the quiet authority of your voice. Now, I am impressed with your humanity and commitment to Palestine. We all know, whether we will say or not, that supporting Palestine on social media could have negative effects on our writing career and prospects. Is there anything that has happened like this to you that you can talk about? If there's something but you don't want to talk about it, can you state that? I'm trying to pry the door of conversation in the world of publishing around this issue, and it's obviously difficult because people don't feel safe going on record in an interview about some things.

I have most definitely been negatively impacted for speaking out about Palestine. I can't go into specifics but the silencing and backlash are both real and material. I've actually been advocating for Palestine for years and posting about it on social media since 2021. No one seemed to have a problem with my advocacy then, but suddenly now they do. 

What are your thoughts on the moral dilemma of protecting and preserving a career or burgeoning career that might be the result of decades of work and toil, versus speaking out about Palestine?

I admire Sally Rooney's advocacy of Palestine. I also acknowledge that she's in a privileged position compared to a debut novelist like myself or a POC author signed to an indie press. Rooney has established a formidable career. She's read around the world. She's also white. She's definitely putting herself at risk for speaking out, but it's hard to erase Sally Rooney at this point. Her books already exist in stores, libraries, and in many homes. For a fledgling writer to speak up, the sacrifice is much greater. We might be erased before anyone has ever heard of us. 

I believe it's especially important for artists to speak out about Palestine. Would you agree, and why or why not?

Absolutely. Artists telegraph their beliefs about humanity in their work. The humanity of my characters means nothing if I don't stand up for real life human beings in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and around the world. I've lost a bit of interest in books written by authors who've remained silent during Gaza's annihilation. 

Have there been any books or articles that have been especially formative for you regarding Palestine or activism or both?

Absolutely. An informative book that I read quickly was Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics by Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick. A terrific poetry book that I loved was Rfqa by Mohammed El-Kurd. I'm also looking forward to reading the work of Isabella Hamad.