Meet Caridad Cole

Caridad Cole is an archivist, collecting moments, sensations, and objects to preserve meaning in the face of impermanence. Her characters are as controlled as her prose, absorbing, cataloging, and curating meaning from the remnants of bewildering experience. Often avoiding conventional forms of narrative, Caridad compiles and displays her artifacts of soul with poetic minimalism and a curatorial tone that guides readers through disorienting awe, grief, and nostalgia.

Follow the Links Below to Read Caridad’s Work on BarBar:
For Sale
India
Wade

Read More From Caridad Here:
The Mariana Trench Is Holding Me Down
Happybot
In a Town Called Albatross

Learn More About Caridad by Following the Links Below:
Caridadcole.com
Instagram
Goodreads
Letterboxd

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Caridad was kind enough to answer a few questions for us. Please enjoy.

What is a writer to you? When did you realize you were a writer?

I think a writer is anyone whose primary method of communication is writing, regardless of their intentions after the words are out. When I see someone scribbling in a diary, or writing down a funny thing they heard just to have it—those are writers. It took me a long, long time to call myself a writer, mainly because I have an older sister who was already “the writer of the family.” But I think I started to embrace it when I took my first creative writing class at the end of high school. I don’t remember a thing I wrote in that class, but I know I looked forward to it every week and was suddenly thinking of a whole new college track. I had to apply to the class with the only writing samples I had at that time—angsty song lyrics. 

Do you have anyone you share your ideas and work with before they’re finished, or do you keep them guarded until they’re ready to fly on their own? How do you determine when a piece is ready for publication?

I feel very lucky that my fiancé is also a writer—mainly a screenwriter—but we absolutely do not share works in progress. Polished drafts, yes, but rough ideas, no. What we share is existential dread and back pain. I prefer to keep my work to myself until I’ve read it top to bottom at least ten times without the impulse to rewrite the entire thing. How do I know when it’s ready? Well, I grit my teeth and think about that widely misattributed quote: “Art is never finished. Only abandoned.” That being said, I regularly find myself tweaking things that have already been published.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself outside of writing?

Outside of writing, I’m a filmmaker, a sewist, a visual artist, an amateur chef. I like to (need to) make things with my hands. Otherwise, I’m outside, probably hunting for treasure or accidentally trespassing. In a past life, I was a spelunker, but nowadays I settle for a good geocache.

What are your three desert island books? 

Impossible question… I would probably spend the time writing a book in the sand, and reciting it to the pelicans.

What if we said you could also take one guilty pleasure? What would you take? Ignore the logistics. It can be a book, album, or movie.

Twilight box set.

Describe your writing routine or lack thereof. (E.g., early morning, late night, sporadic, feast or famine, number of words daily, etc.)

I’m one of those people who can’t do a fun thing until all the un-fun things are finished, and unfortunately (but fortunately) for me, writing is a fun thing. Sometimes I’ll realize I haven’t written anything real for a month, but when I’m in the zone, I enter what my partner and I call “feral” mode: wake up, write write write, don’t drink water, don’t open the curtains, write write write, don’t answer any texts, don’t look at email, write write write, the sun is coming up again and still it’s write write write. When I’m working on a short piece, I do nothing else until it’s complete. For novel length… well I still haven’t figured out the best routine for that but so far it’s feral mode for like two days a week.

Do you have any personal rules for writing? Are there any common rules that you like to break?

I don’t know if it’s really a rule, but I frequently go against the guidance for outlines and structure. I usually prefer to just start at the first sentence and let it flow into whatever length or genre it wants to be. I’ve started short stories that ended up being novel-length, and poems that ended up being short stories. 

How do you balance personal experiences with universal themes in your writing?

I’m a second-generation, speculative writer, and I think those two things go perfectly well together. I try not to use anything too specific from my life, but rather focus on the big picture—nearly all of my writing is inspired by my childhood, my enigmatic older sister, and our mom’s home country of Honduras. I grew up in a very small, mostly rural town, in a renovated farmhouse on top of a mountain. Our backyard was dense, wooded land—idyllic or haunted, depending on the weather. There’s always something I can draw on.

What subjects or themes do you find yourself returning to most often?

Lonely girls, the ocean, physical transformation, non-human consciousness, the woods, the afterlife, and doppelgängers.

If you could provide an accompanying soundtrack to your work, what songs would you include on it? 

Anything composed by Bruno Coulais or Max Richter.

What are your current creative obsessions or preoccupations?

Lately, cannibalism. I absolutely loved Lucy Rose’s The Lamb this year, and have so far written two poems and a rough draft of a short story on the subject. I think things feel very insatiable, dire, and desperate in our world right now, and what is more desperate than cannibalism?

Great work always leaves you wanting more. Where else can we find your work? Do you have any future plans for writing?

You can find all of my published writing on my website: caridadcole.com. I’m currently querying my first novel (full of body horror and melancholy), and once those emails are sent, I’ll be deciding which of my next two novel ideas to jump into. One is inspired by my dad’s extended family, and the other, my mom’s. Which makes my debut inspired by—mine? I do wish I could write it all simultaneously.