Today we’d like to introduce you to E.G. Conde.
Hi E.G., please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
When I was nine years old, I wrote my first story on yellow paper with blue lines. Inspired by the lush, descriptive style of horror writers like Dean Koontz, and later, legends including Puerto Rican legend Esmeralda Santiago and fantasy icon J.R.R. Tolkien, I wrote whenever I could, sometimes while at school when I was supposed to be working on something else. I learned at a young age that stories could be a refuge for the weary, the bored, or those in need of escape from difficult circumstances. While genre fiction became the wellspring of my inspiration, I had difficulty finding speculative stories written by Caribbean creators. Growing up in the United States as part of the Puerto Rican diaspora, I longed to reconnect to my heritage and combine my favorite storytelling genres (horror, science fiction, fantasy) to achieve that, but I wasn’t yet ready.
Years later, I entered university determined to become a writer, studying anthropology as a way to cultivate empathy, broaden my worldview, and teach myself skills like interviewing and archival research which would prove to be indispensable for when I finally started submitting stories for publication. Following a series of short story publications in 2022, my debut novella, SORDIDEZ (2023), was the fulfillment of a dream decades in the making. Not only was it my first book, but the story inaugurated a new genre of indigenous futurism that centered ancestral Antillean cosmology, aesthetics, and technologies (Taínofuturism). I am proud of this achievement and remain incredibly grateful to the generous writing community and my adoring fans and readers who continue to support my journey and literary future.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
For me, writing is an almost spiritual process that is as personal as it is technical. Craft takes time to improve, and as I have noticed with many writers that I have followed over the years, that craft and style is always evolving as the writer themselves evolve. There is no single method or universal standard for evaluating good writing, but there are certainly deeply entrenched biases that predispose us to value some writing over others. When stories leave the workshop of the creative for consideration by publishers and editors, it can be difficult for writers to let go of their creations and defer to the expertise of others. I have learned a great deal from my interactions with editors, whose keen eyes’ have illuminated so many aspects of effective storytelling that I would never have noticed. That being said, there are deeply held notions that many editors share that make it especially difficult for writers of color or writers who are challenging western storytelling conventions to be published or represented by literary agents. I had a few discouraging interactions that illuminated these biases in the industry, but remain hopeful as more alternative markets emerge that are centering the work of marginalized voices in genre fiction.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My writing tends to center my diasporic experiences and ancestral connection to Puerto Rico. To this end, my work is part of an emerging genre of art, music, and storytelling called Taínofuturism. One of the indigenous peoples of the Antilles, the Taíno, long considered to be extinct, are reappearing amid a flourishing revival movement in Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere in the region. Taínofuturism imagines the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean in the future. With stories that include the language, cultural conventions, aesthetics and reimagined technologies of these ancestors, I write futures where the Taíno thrive, albeit in a changed form. Like the maroon communities where Africans and indigenous survivors created refuges from European imperialism and slavery, this is a genre that rejects purity in favor of exchange, celebrating aspects of African, Asian, and in some cases, European culture that influence the descendants of the Taíno today.
My debut novella, SORDIDEZ, is a story about ruin and regeneration. I see it as a blueprint for how Puerto Ricans could achieve liberation from imperial rule and the disastrous effects of climate change. Its flawed characters are ordinary people who adopt different approaches to weathering and overcoming catastrophe. It is ultimately a story about hope and the need to build coalitions between oppressed communities. I am very grateful that my publisher, Stelliform Press, has agreed to publish two sequels, CACIQUES and MAQUECHES, which greatly expand the world and showcase the growth of the characters first introduced in SORDIDEZ.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I think some people are surprised to learn that I live another life as an anthropologist of technology. My research focuses on the environmental cost and politics of data centers, the cloud computing infrastructures behind our digital lives and the AI boom. While it might seem strange to have this second life, I find that my technical knowledge and the skills I have learned from conducting ethnographic research has really improved my ability to write fiction that is accountable and grounded in experiences.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://egconde.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boricuascribe/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090749846980
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaOEMvtZ8tZEi66kDc7lAUQ
- Other: https://bsky.app/profile/boriscrito.bsky.social
Image Credits
Katherine Tirabassi.
