Luna Luna Spotlight: Monique Quintana

BY THE EDITORS OF LUNA LUNA

We here at Luna Luna love our contributors. We know how busy they are—running their own magazines, writing books, resisting the darkness in the world, and making all sorts of magic. That they come back to Luna Luna again and again to write and share and create is an honor, and there are no words to express our thanks. They are family to us, so we thought we'd spotlight them so you could learn more about who they are and what they do. Please support them! Read their articles, buy their books, subscribe to their blogs, and send kisses.

Monique Quintana

Tell us a little bit about what inspires you as a writer. 

I write because I feel compelled to do it. If I go too long without writing, I get anxious and I have a hard time sleeping. I was an extremely shy child, and I always felt more confident when I wrote things down. I always seem to articulate myself better that way. I always feel more powerful when I write as opposed to speaking.

I’ve been really inspired the writings of Wendy Ortiz, Myriam Gurba, Jennifer Givhan, and Laurie Ann Guerrero because they write about sex and death in joyful and grotesquely beautiful ways.

I’m mostly inspired to write by my friends, Jackie Huertaz, Steven Sanchez, and Jacob Hernandez, who got me through my painful/beautiful MFA experience and are still my point people. They’re the other three corners of my tiny coven and are all doing great things with their writing.

What projects/pieces are you working on (especially if it's not LL-related, so we can promote you).

I’m expanding my MFA thesis into a longer manuscript, tentatively titled, Chola Mona Lisa and Other Pieces. It’s a hybrid collection of interconnected Xicana gothic flash fiction, micro-fiction, short stories, and a novella. 

Which one of your LL pieces do you recommend people read right now?

I’d recommend reading my first Luna Luna piece, “Trash Glamour: A Manifesto,” because it gets at what I’m trying to do with my beauty, fashion, and wellness writing for the magazine. These things aren’t petty things, they’re rituals, they’re a part of our everyday lives. Individuals should find what makes them feel powerful and helps them to manifest their existence to the fullest. 

In this current political climate, I’m trying to find ways to politicize my spending. Time is energy, and money is energy. I’m not interested in telling individuals how to look good to appease other people or how to spend a ton of money to live up to a certain ideal that might not be conducive to their own experience. I love transformation and glamour, but it has to be done on my own terms. I adore Old Hollywood and a gothic aesthetic, but I’m not going to forfeit my feminism to try to fit into some kind of preconceived idea of what that means. As a woman of color, it is always going to mean something different for me. There are a lot of brown and black alt girls out there and I’m trying to make contact with them.

Vampires, witches, or ghosts—and why?

All three of these entities have been a resounding presence in my life and are connected in some way. Years ago, my father had a woman do a limpia blessing on his house when a ghost refused to leave, and I prayed many nights to be a vampire when I was a kid, because I wanted to live forever. I was really a witch. Ultimately, witching is my feminism. It makes me think of the women who came before me. It makes me think of my ancestors. It makes me think of a time before colonization. My great-grandmother helped women give birth on both sides of the Mexican border. One day, she left her husband, took back her maiden name, and went to live alone in a doll’s house with a pond and ducklings in the backyard. She was a curandera, and I am a witch, a bruja. They are different, but there are some commonalities. I still try to learn from her.

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Monique Quintana is the fashion editor for Luna Luna, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the literary blogazine, Razorhouse. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from CSU Fresno, and her work has been published or is forthcoming in Huizache, Bordersenses, and The Acentos Review, among others. She is a Squaw Valley Writers Fellow and was the Senior Associate Fiction Editor for The Normal School. She has an affinity for Ray Bans, red lipstick, and Ramón Novarro. She is a Pocha/Chicana identified mother, daughter, sister, lover, and English teacher from central California.

Leza Cantoral's Fave Books As Told By Her Hair Moods

BY LEZA CANTORAL

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Book: The Restored Ariel by Sylvia Plath
Hair Color: Ion, Sky Blue

It is incredible to see Plath’s notes on her poems. Frieda Hughes, her daughter, made this miracle happen. The restored Ariel planted a seed in my mind. The original order of the poems holds a certain power. The bee poems conclude the collection on an eerie note that also hints of spring and renewal.

This shade was ethereal. Probably my favorite blue of all time. It was gorgeous and surreal. I felt like I was not of this earth, like I was floating above it.

Book: Fire: From a Journal of Love by Anais Nin Hair color: Dark Red

Reading the diaries of Anais Nin was a revelation. It was like looking at the inside of my brain/heart/body. Those journals are lyrical, haunting, and so vibrantly alive.

I dyed my hair red very briefly. I had to bleach it out because red makes me oversexed and short-tempered.

Book: Belle de Jour by Joseph Kessel
Hair Color: Blonde

I related to the hunger of the protagonist for something more, not knowing what that is. This book is very French—and I mean that in the best way possible.

Going blonde made me more flirty and flighty. I felt more sexy, in a Marilyn Monroe kinda way. It made men laser in on me. It made me feel naked. There is a purity to blonde, but also a naughtiness.

Book: Village of the Mermaids by Carlton Mellick III

Hair Color: Black

I was writing a novelette called Planet Mermaid, inspired by The Little Mermaid. I was looking for inspiration. The mermaids in this book are spooky and dark and the general atmosphere of the book is very eerie and Lovecraftian. It was perfect.

Black was the first color I ever dyed my hair, back when I was 18 and goth. I was not feeling like myself in the blonde anymore. Going back to black felt like going back to myself. It was empowering.

Book: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Hair Color: Magenta

Flynn’s prose is powerful and her main character, Amy, is as compelling and she is horrifying. She is every man’s worst nightmare. There is a power in channeling these nightmare archetypes. I enjoyed this book maybe a little too much for my boyfriend’s comfort.

I went pink by accident in my quest to go purple or actually, lavender. It was very bright and vibrant and I felt like I was on fire with manic pixie dust.

Book: So Sad Today by Melissa Broder
Hair Color: Splat, Blue Envy

So Sad Today is raw, poetic, and devastating. As soon as I finished this I read Meat Heart and Last Sext. Melissa Broder is one hell of a poet and also a Twitter genius. I find myself retweeting any tweet I see from her @sosadtoday account.

In a moment of frustration about the surprisingly complicated chemistry involved in achieving pastel colors, I bought a bottle of blue Splat hair color. It looked pretty cool but blue makes me feel kinda disassociated and not quite human.

Book: Witch Hunt by Juliet Escoria
Hair Color: Overtone, Vibrant Purple

Witch Hunt is vivid, gripping, sardonic, and quirky. It is brutal and beautiful. My favorite part is actually at the end, where she describes various panic attacks she has suffered from. I love Juliet because she uses words to reveal, not to enchant. She opens up the dark places. Can’t get enough of that.

Like Goldilocks, I finally found the perfect purple. I did not achieve pastel but I found a gorgeous shade of vibrant purple. I stuck with this one for a while. Overtone is an amazing product for anyone who can’t commit to a color, or just wants a way to brighten a shade between dye jobs. Also, their conditioner smells incredible. Very minty and sweet.

Book: Glue by Constance Ann Fitzgerald
Hair Color: Aqua

Glue is a bite sized book that packs a big punch. No frills, just bones, blood, and blackouts. It is the story of a father, a motorcycle, an accident & a daughter who is trying to piece it all together. It’s heart-rending.

In my quest to achieve pastel purple, I gave my purple hair a bleach bath. Apparently, your hair turns green when you do that. It’s chemistry, and I still don’t understand it. I was horrified at first, but then I saw that it was actually a really petty shade, and it was a pastel shade, so that was one hair goal checked off, finally. It was a nice Xmas surprise to go along with the release of my short story collection Cartoons in the Suicide Forest.

Book: Sunshine State by Sarah Gerard
Hair Color: Manic Panic, Electric Banana

Sunshine State is a powerful collection of personal essays stringing together family history and the history of the author’s home state of Florida. Sarah has a way of peeking under the human skin that is unsettling and cathartic. I was floored and I was sobbing by the end.

I went yellow for a hot minute. It looked really bright and cool but it was more of a lime yellow because of all the green that was baked into my hair follicles from all the dyeing and bleaching. I went to an LGBTQ benefit dance and my hair was definitely the star that night.

Book: i can remember the meaning of every tarot card but i can’t remember what i texted you last night by Elle Nash

Hair Color: Arctic Fox, Neverland

These poems are raw and mystical, vulnerable and tough as nails. They breathe on the page, like Tarot cards come to life. They swept me away to other galaxies and selves and lives never lived. It is an experience that makes you naked to your true self. Pure poetic magick.

I decided to embrace the green and found a gorgeous minty shade by Arctic Fox. I mixed in a tablespoonful of Siren Song by Manic Panic to brighten it up. It turned out amazing. The dye also smells like bubblegum, is vegan, cruelty free, and they donate 15% to help prevent animal abuse. I gotta say, I feel pretty damn magickal in this color.

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Leza Cantoral is an author and editor from Mexico. She writes for Luna Luna Magazine and her first collection of short stories, Cartoons in the Suicide Forest, was published by Bizarro Pulp Press. She is the editor of Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath, coming out in December 2017 through CLASH Books. Her poems appear in A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault published by Civil Coping Mechanisms. (Twitter @lezacantoral)

8 Books Perfect for Summertime Fever Dreaming

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Summer is a time of rebirth—everyone says so. Even if you dread the heat and all those bodies locked up next to one another, and even if you can’t stand the sweat and the toil, the summer is kicking up all that stuff inside of you that needs to be released or confronted. Sometimes, for some of us, it takes a summer  to realize beauty and goodness again, while for others, it takes a summer of thinking-thinking-feeling-feeling to finally allow yourself to rest and blossom during the cooler months.

Whatever you feel, the summer is a character in our lives, and it has an impact—whether direct or not.

There’s also something about the summer that makes prose even more seductive. Sure, the winter has had its moments, but it’s the summer—and all its summery things: cool wine, perspiration, dark, hot nights, loud light, white fabrics, the sand and the sea, fever dreams, inescapable lust, suffering—that pools us in. Here are a few of my favorite read-again-over-the-summer books, not just for their content, but for the perfect way they pair with the heat and light. Some books you just must read at the kitchen window in that hot yellow light. 

These are a few of my favorite summer reads over the past couple of years. 

The Sailor from Gibraltar by Marguerite Duras

Holy shit, this is beautiful and heavy, like wet clothes, or like a wine-fueled dream. I started this one years ago and never quite finished, and then I started it again and finished it. Why? I don’t know why. Duras is exceptional—her language is like falling asleep and waking up in the most elaborate palace. This book follows a French man who feels his life is all sort of pointless—and so he finds himself in Italy, and then on a yacht sailing with an American woman who is searching always for her sailor. The language is a dreamy, hot, violent, thrashing animal. Read more about my love for this book here. 

The History of Violets (translation) by Marosa di Giorgio

Marosa di Giorgio makes me weep. Every time, without fail. She is a Uruguayan poet whose voice has transcended style or genre. She pulls me into a place in myself that makes sense. By reading her work, I can experience two worlds: the one we see, and the one we feel. It’s like she makes the ghosts come out. It’s like she haunts me from the inside, always there, sprinkling a little magic into my life and work.

This book is all summer—it’s about the farm di Giorgio grew up on, and where the supernatural and the real converge in a playground of greenery and life and death. It is also a book about memories, which in its own way, is deeply rooted in the tenants' summertime. That we’re hot and moving through this intense heat, and that our childhoods were filled with long days and weeks often without direction, that we remember these things, those long hours, and that we fill them with our feelings and fears. In Marosa’s farm, the ghosts and vines mingle, and it’s a splendid look at how prose can encounter remembering and truth and family.

Ps: I have a tattoo on my arm from one of her poems. It reads, Recuerdo la eternidad (I remember eternity).

RELATED: 4 Poetry Collections That Will Give You All the Feelings Ever

Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin

Because summer is sex embodied by nature. Because Anaïs Nin's work is sweat and blood and feverish heat. If you haven’t read Delta of Venus, you are in for it, because this book is resplendent and erotic and musical. Nin is basically my other mother, so I’m biased. Full disclosure.

This book was written in the 1940s (sigh), and it’s filled with stories of want and hunger and fetish and desire. It’s also very daring, which, if you were a woman in the 1940s, was not an easy thing to be. It’s also refreshing to read about sexuality from a woman’s goddamn perspective.

There were days when certain fragments of his past, the most erotic, would rise to the surface, permeate his every movement, give to his eyes the disquieting stare Elena had first seen in him, to his mouth a laxness and abandon, to his whole face an expression of one whom no experience had eluded. 🌙 "the illustrated Delta of Venus" #deltaofvenus

96 Likes, 2 Comments - Lisa Marie Basile (@lisamariebasile) on Instagram: "There were days when certain fragments of his past, the most erotic, would rise to the surface,..."

The Stranger by Albert Camus

I’ve read The Stranger about 10 times, and it’s changed for me every time. The first time I read it, I was in 11h grade, and our teacher had us focusing on existentialism. It was then, in that classroom, that my understanding of literature changed. Yes, I had read from the canon, and I’d read beautiful books—but none that mocked me like The Stranger did. It was slow and strange and I could not understand Mersault. I loved and hated him. I felt this oppressive, hot, swampy suffocation take over as I read it. I could feel the summer of the book on me; I could feel the sun and the sand and the sea and the violence and madness. I didn’t know what to think. I often felt fatigued while reading it. And still do.

The Mystical Rose by Adélia Prado

I adore this book for so, so many reasons. Prado, firstly, was an inspiration to me when I first started writing. Having visited Brazil (with family from her town, Minas Gerais), I feel an even stronger connection. Prado was a devout Catholic, which you can feel in her work, blended into her ideas of the body, the imagination, the mystical and the sexual. Breasts, fruit, light, and dark—it’s all here, and to me, it smells of summer. Of all the bad and beautiful smells of the human body.

You can find some translated poems here: http://bombmagazine.org/article/3056/four-poems.

Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

I reread this magnificent this book on the beach recently, and it struck me that most books about young women are sadly quite trite and full of melodrama. Not this one. Kincaid’s writing is so alluring and unique and bold, and this story—about an au pair from the West Indies, Lucy—is a transcendent coming of age story. It’s set in the backdrop of a wealthy white family’s home, where Lucy is alone, without her family, dealing with issues of race, identity, cultural loneliness, and the developing self. It’s like summer itself; there is a change occurring, as Lucy experiences, and reading her story comes at you in full force with all the heat of its weight and terribleness and power and reflection.

RELATED: 4 Existential Poetry Collections You Should Read

My Summer of Love by Helen Cross

You may have seen the movie, but have you read the book? It looks at the love-lust-obsession between two young girls who, very different, fill their achingly hot summers with one another. The two girls delve into the darkness of death and loneliness and sensuality and power, and their relationship becomes a sort of power play. It’s heady and I’m obsessed by it. I can smell the rivers and the sheets and the skies the book inhabits.

The Present Tense of the World by Amina Said

This book is drenched in summer in that the Tunisian shore, and other lands, lap you up as you read. Said writes that she "was born on the shore, of the sea of the setting sun." But it’s more than that; there’s a sense of fleeting transience, and discovery of the self through place, and the sea outlining the lands and cultures she travels to. Said writes in French (you can read more about that, and the implications of colonization in language here) and there’s a definite sense of the political in all of her work. It’s a beautiful, heavy read, and one that I believe is required, especially for any poet who wants to understand place and the self within it. I found, reading it in the summer on the shore in dead-heat, that I was drunk on its dripping, begging language. I can’t imagine reading it in the winter; it’s too urgent for coolness.

Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness) by Françoise Sagan.

I literally read this book while sunbathing nude. It’s about a girl who spends her summer in the French Riviera, surrounded by her father and his lovers and their sensual antics. She then develops a relationship with a boy from a villa over, and the book becomes one of sex and jealousy and dreams of death. The book is a drug, and reading it, you feel high and full and languid, like you’re hiding behind a hot, vulgar, strange veil. More than that, it is a feminist book, one that isn’t afraid to explore a young woman’s sexuality from her perspective.

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Lisa Marie Basile is an editor, writer and poet living in NYC. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and the author of APOCRYPHAL (Noctuary Press, 2014), as well as a few chapbooks: Andalucia (Poetry Society of New York), War/Lock(Hyacinth Girl Press), and Triste (Dancing Girl Press). Her bookNYMPHOLEPSY (co-authored with poet Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein), was a finalist in the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.