Outer Alliance Spotlight #33: Cesar Torres May 7, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , trackbackWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #33. Each Friday, the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Cesar Torres, one of the Outer Alliance’s founding members, and author of The 12 Burning Wheels.
Cesar was born and raised in Mexico City, but has lived in Chicago for the past 23 years. An advocate of both art and science, Cesar has been involved with performance arts groups like Barrel of Monkeys and The Neofuturists, and is currently working towards an MS in Human-Computer Interaction at DePaul University. His diverse interests inform his writing, which he describes as weird and wondrous.
Cesar maintains a Twitter feed in addition to his blog. He will be reading from The 12 Burning Wheels on the first of June at Hopleaf as part of their Gothic Funk reading series.
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OA: Your publisher, Chris Fletcher of M-Brane SF describes The 12 Burning Wheels as an astounding cycle of stories. Can you tell us more about it?
CT: The 12 Burning Wheels comes from all corners of that rotted walnut I call my brain. There’s a huge spectrum there. Some stories are pretty frightening, some a are a bit abstract, some are set in the future, and some are in alternate versions of Chicago. You could call the stories fantasy, but the sub title “Stories of the strange and the wondrous” is closer to how I think of them. I like for each story to give the reader a sense of the possibilities of the new, of the unknown. The use of the word wonder has more ancient applications. In centuries past, it was used to describe the wonders of the natural world, in things like butterflies and plants. I would love to bring that usage back.
OA: You’re doing a reading in Chicago on June 1st as part of a Gothic Funk series. What constitutes Gothic Funk, and how does your work fit into it?
CT: Gothic Funk is a collection of artists and writers. They also are a press. They hold Tuesday Funk here in Chicago to showcase writers and poets. I will be reading on June 1. I have about 15 minutes, so I think I can squeeze in two stories from The 12 Burning Wheels. Strangely enough, I was chatting at the reading last night with organizer Hallie Palladino, and I thanked her for including a spec fic writer like myself into the mix. A lot of the readers fall more into the category of literary fiction, but the Gothic Funk bunch is very forward thinking and open minded. They are all about good writing. And I got myself in there through my connection to fatnasy writer William Shunn, who’s also a Chicagoan.
OA: As one of the group’s founding members, you suggested the name, The Outer Alliance. How did you come with that name, and what do you hope to see the OA do in the future?
CT: Queer and trans people, as far as my eye can see, will be “the other” for a long time in our society, meaning they live on the fringe of society. I am not playing down the progress we have made here, let me be clear about that. What I mean is that we still operate on the outside of things. We are not fully integrated into society. Outer space and the outer reaches of space seemed like the perfect metaphor for this. And to go back to the sense of wonder, outer space also poses a plethora of good possibilities. And a group like OA should also do that: promise great possibilities of tolerance, inclusion and hope to its members.
OA: You’ve lived in a lot of different places including Mexico, Ireland, and Japan, but you settled in Chicago. What led you there, and what do you love about your current home city?
CT: I came to Chicago in 1986 because I have family here. And indeed, it changed my life. It was tough to be be an immigrant, to learn a new language, tough to adapt, but I enjoyed a lot of my experiences. After I graduated from journalism school at Northwestern, I went to Ireland for some time, just to work and live life. I made two pounds an hour and could barely afford food. It was pretty awesome! Ireland is an amazing place and Dublin is one of my favorite cities in the world. I came back to Chicago and worked for Tribune Company and Encyclopedia Britannica for some years. Then in 2001 I went away again, this time to teach English in Osaka, Japan. I came back in 2002, to get back to my career. The return to Chicago also marked the time when I got really serious about getting published. I was turning 30, and I knew I didn’t want to hit the age of 60 or 70 and regret not having worked harder to get published.
I must say, though, Chicago is a brilliant city, alive and roaring with life, full of pretty hearty people. It’s definitely home. Viva Chicago.
OA: You’re interested in turning The 12 Burning Wheels into performance art. What kind of show do you envision? What other projects can we look forward to seeing from you?
CT: I spent about 9 years of my time in Chicago working with the theater company and education organization Barrel of Monkeys, and I was privileged to work and perform with some amazing performers there: Clowns, writers, dancers, actors and great directors. I realized how important it was to bring storytelling alive in front of an audience. And now, seeing how crappy some author readings can be, I want to change that. At Tuesday Funk in June, I will likely just read, because I am pressed for time right now with grad school deadline. But I am making plans to reconstruct some of the stories in 12BW in a more presentational way later this year. Perhaps “Lemonade” performed with puppets? Or maybe “Honey” performed using beams of light and pre-recorded video and my face bathed in blood? Kind of like David Byrne meets Grace Jones meets Skinny Puppy. Of course, it’s dependent on budget and venue, so if any artists want to collaborate with me on performing 12BW, gimme a shout….
The bottom line is that The 12 Burning Wheels should have propulsion to them, whether it’s on the page or beyond. I just want to do my weird stories justice.
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Thanks, Cesar! Join us next Friday for another spotlight, and in the meantime, check out The 12 Burning Wheels.
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