Q&A with Board Member Marytza Rubio

April 30, 2021 — Marytza K. Rubio is the newest director of the Granum Foundation. She brings to the organization her leadership and expertise as the founder of Makara Center for the Arts, a nonprofit lending library based in Santa Ana, California. She has also worked with PEN America and serves on the advisory committee for the Emerging Voices Fellowship Program. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Slice Magazine, and The Normal School. Maria, Maria, her debut collection of short stories, is scheduled for publication in 2022.

Marytza, thank you for joining us!

Granum: What was your motivation for creating Makara Center for the Arts, and have you met the goals you set out to achieve?

Marytza: Thank you for including me! I was motivated to start Makara in 2016 because, at the time, there was only one full-service public library in Santa Ana. I’ve worked or volunteered in nonprofits since I was a teen, so I was comfortable navigating all the paperwork and guidelines required to start my own 501(c)(3). I went into it understanding the risks, potential challenges, and likely rewards.

When I started Makara, I imagined that we would only be around for five years. I thought that five years would give us time, at the very least, to get the conversation going about the need for more library services and free access to literature in Santa Ana. Recently, the city has discussed plans for a bookmobile and a new full-service library; and I’ve advised staff at other nonprofits and art collectives on how to start their own community libraries. Makara is not directly responsible for the potential increase in library services, but I do think it is part of a wave of people prioritizing anti-capitalist approaches to acquiring knowledge. The Free Black Woman’s Library, Feminist Library on Wheels (Women’s Center for Creative Work), and the new Noname Book Club Headquarters, which hosts a community library, are incredible examples of how we can utilize literature to offer care for our neighbors. I’m proud that Makara is part of that conversation and that we continue on as a mail-order library service.

Granum: You are a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow and now serve on the advisory committee for the program. What did you gain from participating in the program? As its structure evolves, what are your hopes for its future?

Marytza: The number one goal I have for Emerging Voices is to help make it sustainable. I am encouraged to see other literary organizations develop mentorship programs and fellowships, and I think that the more options there are for writers to find nurturing communities, the better the literary landscape will be for both readers and writers.

Granum: Tell us about Maria, Maria!

Marytza: It’s my short story collection full of creatures and clandestine rituals set across the tropics and megacities of the Americas, including a reimagined California rainforest. I am happy with the range of worlds that are presented in this collection, including a multiverse story that nearly broke my brain in my attempts to grasp quantum physics, and a tender decapitation. I’ve been writing the stories for nearly a decade, and as I work through the edits, I can see it as a glass jar holding shiny talismans of all my foundational influences: tarot cards, the ocean, big cats, odd flowers, eggs. I’ve joked that an alternative title could be “All the Men Are Dead,” and it’s mostly accurate to the characters and the choices they make.

Granum: With your new role as a board member at the Granum Foundation, what do you hope to achieve? Who do you see as the ideal candidates for the Granum Fellowship?

Marytza: I really want to see artists from working-class backgrounds, outside of academia, and from historically excluded communities take the risk to invest in themselves. I want to see writers with children, writers over 65 years old, polymath writers without degrees, and all ranges of dedicated writers engage with The Artist’s Statement Podcast and see themselves as ideal candidates for this fellowship. I hope that applicants understand that Granum was created for artists by artists. Davin and Troy are artists with day jobs and family obligations, artists who have also experienced creative highs and lows of wanting to give up or turn everything around. I would want applicants to know that their work is considered with intention and compassion, and the award is based on promise and artistry as much as it considers need.

Applying for a grant or fellowship, or sending a story out for publication, always feels risky. Sometimes it’s a yes and sometimes it’s a no. Lots of times it’s a no! But I see rejection as a critical part of artistic development and maturity. If you are already pushing up against barriers in your daily life, it can feel almost masochistic to join the competition for artistic recognition and resources. But I would ask those writers specifically to honor themselves and their work by applying for literary opportunities, because it does help refine your own vision. As someone who dealt with years of rejection and also served on adjudication panels for various grants, I am grateful to have learned how to just take the L and move on. I think ideal candidates for this fellowship will have reached that point of their careers where they can understand a rejection, or acceptance, does not define them as artists; their commitment to their work does. The Granum Foundation Fellowship Prize is designed to support communities of writers who are committed to their artistic practice.