FICTION
“Snowstorm,” The New Yorker
On a particularly cold day, I sent my mother a picture of the snow falling onto the soccer field out my window, which I knew she found serene, beautiful even, but this time she found it scary. Does walking outside feel like being buried alive? she asked.
“Reunion,” Guernica
The daughter suggested using her HappyLight to make this day last a bit longer. She pressed a button and their faces shone, the white walls an otherworldly bluish hue. Her mother gasped, delighted and shocked that one could have so much control over one’s day.
“Diversions,” A Public Space
Look, she said and held up her laptop to show me outside.
Light flooded the screen and for a moment all I saw was white. She reappeared as a silhouette, and then as her full self again.
It’s getting cloudy, she said. Now I can’t go swimming in the ocean anymore.
“Firsthand Account,” The Common
He gave me a tour of the farm and showed me the dogs, the mare, the fish, and the pet vultures. Twelve black ones were perched on the fence around the artificial pond full of fish. I stood by the water, watching some of the birds defecate on their own legs to cool down.
NONFICTION
“Building Something Together: Translators Discuss Their Art,” The New York Times
When I found myself as a Brazilian national in New England, suddenly my language wasn’t a part of my daily life. Translation was a way for me to put my Brazilian side and my American life in conversation, and to feel whole. So for me translation is very much a part of being truthful to who I am.
Other nonfiction appears in Astra Magazine, BOMB, Ploughshares online, The Millions, The Christian Science Monitor, Words Without Borders, Asymptote Journal, Music & Literature, Washington Square Review blog, Revista Pessoa, Exchanges, Plain China, The Economic Observer’s Book Review, The Feminist Wire, Creative Nonfiction, Bennington, and elsewhere.
“Translating Race: on The Dark Side of Skin,” Literary Hub
Every time we talked answers came to me. Translation (and writing) has a way of inserting itself into my daily life: phrases will come to me in the shower, while I wash the dishes, while I chop vegetables for dinner, or sip wine with a friend. My body relaxes and my mind tunes to a character’s voice like a radio.
“A (Tiny) Room of One’s Own: On the Intricate Joy of Miniatures,” Lit Hub
A bottlecap and some polymer clay became an apple pie in a dish with fluted edges. A pencil ferrule became a soup can. Origami paper and jewelry findings became a lampshade and lamp base. Every random object I saw reminded me of something else, like a visual pun, a playful game of metaphors.
“Brazilian Rhythms, Queer Longing: A Literary Playlist,” Literary Hub
My partner, a jazz musician, heard me read the translations through the walls each day and started to recognize each one. He didn’t know their titles or what they were about, but he could refer to each one by singing their melodies. “The one that goes…,” he’d say and start singing.