Core Memories: Alejandro Heredia
We believe the origin of our work as creators is important to consider and hold. In CORE MEMORIES, we ask artists and writers about their own creative beginnings. What led them to operate in their genre of choice? Was it a specific moment, an errant thought, a movement? Was it an insight, a person, a place? Years into their work, does it continue to resonate?
In this edition, we interview Alejandro Heredia.
Alejandro Heredia is a queer Afro-Dominican writer and community organizer from The Bronx. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, the Dreamyard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, and the Dominican Studies Institute. In 2019, he was selected by Myriam Gurba as the winner of the Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Contest. His book of short stories, You’re the Only Friend I Need (2021), explores themes of queer transnationalism, friendship, and (un)belonging in the African Diaspora. Alejandro’s work has been featured in Teen Vogue, Lambda Literary Review, Tasteful Rude Magazine, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from Hunter College. You can find him at aleheredia.com
What is your CORE MEMORY?
There was no single moment that made me a writer. I migrated from Santo Domingo to The Bronx when I was seven and had to learn English very quickly. I’ve always had to pay extra care to words. It might have been when my fourth-grade ESL teacher snuck me into advanced, English-only classes because he thought I was a good writer. It might have been the sudden and fastidious love I developed with reading in seventh grade. Or in college where I found friends and mentors that said, “You’re doing something right with language. Keep going.”
What happens these days is really validating. Publishing a first short story, getting an agent, having a random stranger approach you in the street to tell you they like your work. I’ve experienced all of these and they all affirm that I’m on the right track. But it’s the developmental stuff that’s really made me a writer. The conditions of my life, combined with my personal interests as a kid, made me develop an obsessive relationship with language and informed the kind of writer I am today.
How has that moment impacted your current work or current artistic practice?
The sum of these experiences reminds me of the importance of community. I’m a writer because people saw something in my sentences they thought was promising. Those people have supported me via encouragement, feedback, resources, etc. Now that I’m more grounded in my identity as a writer (in fact, this is the identity that seems to matter most), I remind myself of the importance of giving back and staying engaged. Even in the midst of a long writing project, as I find myself now. I ask myself, “How am I showing up for others?” It’s a difficult balancing act for writers. Because the stereotype is true, we do need a lot of alone time to create. But it’s equally as important to think about how we’re embodying the values at the center of our writing. For example, I write a lot about friendship as a home when society, identity groups, and nations fail us. So it’s important to me that as I’m writing about these themes, I’m also showing up for the people I love. It isn’t always easy. But as with writing, it’s important that we live with intention.
The only thing that matters more to me than writing is how I live my life.