On October 1, 2023, my flash story “El bosque rosa eléctrico” was published in El BeiSMan, one of America’s premiere magazines in the United States publishing literature written in Spanish. I am grateful to the editor, María Mínguez Arias, for welcoming my story and presenting it so beautifully.

On October 14, 2022, the English version was published in Fictive Dream by Editor Laura Black, who also recently interviewed me about the origins of the story for the magazine’s new podcast. (When the episode launches, I will post about it here.)

The truth is that neither version is “the original”: The story was born in both languages, a way of working that is now quite ordinary for me. Ideas flow into me bilingually and I allow my early drafts to realize themselves with whatever words are most amenable to the telling of the story. Then I translate myself, often sharpening and transforming both versions in the process. I workshopped in Mexican writer Mónica Lavín’s taller de escritura and it bears her mark as well, especially the ending.

For me, all writing is collaborative, all stories are implicit dialogues between me and my reader and between me and my community of creators. If you get a chance to read the story, in either tongue, let me know what you think.