Richard Rodriguez

Hugo House: In a couple of months you will debut a brand-new piece at Hugo House; have you started working on it yet?

Richard Rodriguez: Yes, I have come up with a piece about my recent bout with cancer and the scars that illness and a lifetime of relationships have left on my body and soul--personal injuries. Doubtless it will get revised, in coming weeks. Everything I write gets reworked many, many times.
 
HH: What were your first thoughts on receiving an invitation to write on an assigned theme? Any regrets on having said yes?

RR: I didn't regret saying yes.  But it did occur to me, often, that there were topics other than "personal injury" about which I would like to have given my time. The task was to get "your" topic to fit my interests.
 
HH: Could you tell us a little bit about your process--how you approach writing something new?

RR: In a case like this, when I am given a particular subject to write about, my response is governed by the obligation to think about the issue at hand. As a writer, I am associated with the personal essay. The truth is that my essays are records of an idea--a progress of my thinking about a particular problem or issue. It is my thinking life I write about--the adventures of mind rather than body.
 
HH: Children are full of scraped knees from falling off bikes, bee stings from treating hives like pinatas or an occasional broken bone from doing that thing mom told them not to do about 100 times. What was your most harrowing injury as a child?

RR: I don't remember any great childhood injury. Maybe that is the benefit of having been a timid child physically. I was always the last one to jump into the pond.
 
HH: If you were a personal injury lawyer, what would your toll-free number spell?

RR: 1-800-REVENGE.