When I use humor in my work, I try to do what David Sedaris does. If you ever read any of his stuff, he is always super funny right before he says the thing. I think this makes the emotional drop more dramatic.
To Shake Them Awake, Ivelisse Rodriguez Interviews Ansel Elkins
My Uncle Juan jokingly offered up an ingenious portmanteau to define our racially and culturally complex family: “We’re red Ricans,” he said, “—a mix of redneck and Puerto Rican.” In a way, this might be the most accurate description of my family’s blended cultural identity. As a woman of Puerto Rican descent who grew up in the Deep South, my work is woven from a multitude of different voices enriched by many different cultures. My father was the son of Alabama sharecroppers, and so that is a very different culture from the one my mother came from, but both shared a common experience of growing up poor in the South.
