Sarah Cortez, a proud Bostonian, is a police officer, poet, short story writer, and editor of the award-winning nonfiction Windows Into My World, a collection of short memoirs written by young authors. She is also the editor of the anthology Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery. She was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule to answer my questions about her work, editing, and her creative process.
Thank you for this interview, Sara. How do you combine your personas of cop, poet, freelance writer, and editor when you sit down to write?
When I sit down to write, the main character is that of a poet. By that, I mean that the main goal, in whatever genre is presented, is to create a piece that achieves the goal of that genre in an economy of language and graceful style. In addition to this, of course, there are considerations of theme and tone, which are largely based on my experiences as a street police officer. I see the world from a working class perspective. This change occurred despite the fact that I grew up in a white collar environment and worked in the white collar corporate world for fourteen years before going into law enforcement.
Were you an avid reader as a child?
As a child, I couldn’t wait to learn the magic of letters and words. My mom was a classroom educator and she started teaching me letters and words before kindergarten. In fact, I fondly remember her sewing on her sewing machine the book binding she made for me with the big, beautiful pictures from Life magazine. My parents read me a story every night before going to bed, what a pleasure! Once I was older I devoured all the adventure stories in the library.
After reading one of his poems, I can’t help but feel that the ‘toughness’ required to be a police officer is reflected in his tone and imagery. Tell us a little about your creative process. Do the poems flow from you like a stream of consciousness? Do you edit and re-edit a lot?
In terms of creative process, this is how I work the poems. The first line will come to me, usually when I’m doing some mundane, repetitive task like driving. I always write it immediately. It is a gift from the subconscious. This first line sets the rhythm of the poem. I call it “the music of the front line”. Then, when I have time I continue writing the poem, starting from that first line. As I write, I experiment in the usual way that any good poet does, for example, changing line length, stanza length, vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation, etc. During this period I am also looking at what the poem is trying to become, that is, the main focus of the poem. After many edits and experiments, perhaps at least ten versions of the poem, I will arrive at what I consider to be a “first draft”. This is the version that I will type on the computer and print. (All the above work I do by hand). From this “first draft”, I will keep revising the poem. Very few poems are collected in less than a year. Sometimes there will be a single word that is not perfect and it can take years to think about it to find the exact word that fits. I remember that the poet Olga Broumas said in one of her powerful poems that it took her seven years to find the final verb that completes and absolutely unites that poem.
What about your short fiction editing process?
I was first published in short fiction because the love of it is what led me to start taking creative writing courses. In addition, my years of experience editing memoirs had given me a lot of knowledge about those mechanics that the two genres have in common: narrative, rhythm, tone, dialogue, characterization, forward and backward in time. I have had an author none other than the amazingly prolific and talented American Book Award winner Joseph Bruchac praised my edition of his short fiction. I see editing as a vehicle to educate the beginning writer as well, so I try to explain my choices so that a beginning writer is also supported in acquiring additional skills. Usually, an editor doesn’t have to explain the options to an experienced professional writer: they understand immediately.
Lately he has been holding workshops for young adults based on his book Windows to My World: Young Latinos Write Their Lives. Tell us a little about this book.
The original idea to create an anthology of short memoirs written by young Latinos (school and college age) came to me because there was nothing on the market. There were a lot of books with middle-aged Latinos/as writing about being young, but there was nothing with young Latinos/as writing about being young. (In the memoir, this shift in perspective radically affects the writing.) Through my own teaching of high school Latinos, I knew how desperately needed such a resource was. One of the greatest joys when I travel the country meeting teachers, librarians, community educators, and graduate students who teach composition is that they all say, “Thank you! We need this book to help us reach our students.”
What’s on the horizon for you?
Thanks for asking about my current projects. I am collecting writings from police officers to create an anthology of voices to tell America who we are. He will spend most of the next few months traveling to book launch events across the US for HIT LIST: THE BEST OF LATINO MYSTERY. We have events in New York City, Denver, Texas, California, etc. The positive response to the book is overwhelming. I also continue to participate in events to help people learn about WINDOWS TO MY WORLD: LATINO YOUTH WRITE THEIR LIVES.
Thank you Sara!