Poet Interview: Emmanuella Hristova

Emmanuella Hristova was born in Oakland, California and grew up in the Bay Area. She is the third daughter of Bulgarian parents who immigrated to California shortly before she was born. She began drawing at the ripe age of four and studied fine arts for five years in high school. There, she received many art accolades, including a Congressional award for her piece ‘Boy in Red’ in 2009. In 2015, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley. She began writing poetry at age twenty-four, when she was in graduate school. She earned her Master's in Education from the same alma mater in 2017. Emmanuella spent two years as an English teacher in Richmond, California. During that time, she self-published her first poetry collection: The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder. Two of her poems have been published in For Women Who Roar. Currently, she lives in Paris and is working on her first and second novels. She speaks English, Bulgarian, Spanish and is now learning French.

When did you become a poet? How did you know it was the right medium for your stories?

I think I was always a poet. When I was in high school, I wrote a few poems in an old notebook of mine, and occasionally I’d write a few deep-felt lines and post them on my Xanga account. At the time, I didn’t view what I wrote as poetry, not until years later. When I was in graduate school, I fell in love for the first time, went through my first heartbreak, and lost my sister to breast cancer. Poetry was a way for me to pen down my turbulent feelings, and find a small sliver of sanity in the process.  

What inspires you to write? 

Strong emotions often inspire me to write. Regularly, I write in response to the struggle and personal conflict I face in my own life. Other times, I write in response to tragic historical events. What allows me to keep going is the fact that I express myself best on paper—and feel the need to share my voice and thoughts with the world.  

Who are some of your literary or artistic crushes or influences? 

Sylvia Plath. I love that brilliant, troubled woman. “Lady Lazarus” gives me chills every time. I want to emulate her, but alas, no one could come close. I have a thing for kick-ass women artists in general. So, artists like Frida Kahlo really inspire me as well, from an aesthetic point of view. The dark, electronic musical stylings of BANKS inspired my whole first poetry collection: The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder. From a literary perspective, however, I really look to magical realist authors like Georgi Gospodinov, Garbriel García Marquéez, and Jonathan Safran Foer really influence my work. For general fantasy inspiration I love J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein and George R.R. Martin. I also adore the poetic narrative style of a-Nehisi Coates and Yaa Gyasi. 

What are you currently reading and is it a good read or not? 

I’m currently reading The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. This is an excellent sci-fi novel that explores an alien world that’s not restricted by gender expression since the race is hermaphroditic, so they can transform into a man or woman during the heat. Thus, they can be fathers or mothers. I was expecting a heavier feminist feel, but I was surprised at how many other cultural elements the author explored in this book. 

What are you working on next/what was your last project? 

I always have multiple writing projects going on at the same time. I recently finished I finished writing and editing my first novel All These Things I Never Said and am currently seeking a literary agent for that. The novel tells the tale of a young woman who deals with the grief of losing both her father and sister and grappling with her belief in God and family. In the background, I’m writing my second novel, American Trespass, albeit very slowly. This one is about an undocumented student at UC Berkeley who finds a hidden gated community inhabited by multicultural residents, all with fascinating stories of their own. At the same time, I’m working on drafting my second poetry book: The Other Crown. It’s a follow-up to The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder, which I self-published in 2018. The Other Crown is about three different heartbreaks, breaking society’s expectations about what it means to be a woman, and find real love in the end. 

What are some common themes you see in your own work? 

Common themes that come up in my work are grief, faith, family, heartbreak, feminism and women’s issues, immigration and other social justice themes. They say that you write about what you know—and of course, I started writing to deal with my own grief and heartbreak after losing my sister to cancer when I was 24 years old. Writing also gave me a reprieve from the emotional issues that came along with my adult relationships. However, my writing reveals much of my personal background as well. Thirty years ago, my parents moved to the United States with two suitcases. The world was different then, the Cold War was ending in Bulgaria and people still had hope for the American Dream. They ended up raising me in a conservative, evangelical community. We did live in a more “liberal” part of the United States; however, which led me to feel that all these different communities I was part of were on the opposite end of extremes. I felt like I was being pulled in many directions. I was deeply religious, yet I went to one of the most liberal universities in the United States. I loved reading the Bible yet considered myself a feminist. I was American, yet the rest of my family was not. But through my writing, I discovered that these weren’t different directions—they were many layers and facets of society that I had the privilege of demonstrating to others using my words. These various world views intersected with one another and gave birth to my writing which became heavily influenced by Biblical themes and stories, with social justice undertones. 

Do you feel that sharing your poetry is a vulnerable process, and why do you feel that way? 

When I self-published my poetry collection The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder, I was scared. But then I realized—most people I know aren’t actually going to read it. This made me realize that the fear was just in myself, and I had nothing to feel ashamed of in sharing my deepest feelings and experiences. Through becoming vulnerable with others, you realize others are vulnerable themselves, and they can connect with you because you’ve taken the first brave steps in speaking. I used to read poetry from The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder and other poems as part of an open mic at The Literary Octopus in Oakland, CA. The process was very scary since I was reading about love, heartbreak, and women’s issues in front of a mostly male audience. As a woman writing and sharing about my own emotional experiences, my work tends to speak to other women, and sharing in front of most men was intimidating. But I forced myself to do it, over and over again. One of my colleagues at the time applauded my bravery; she said speaking my truth, feminist and otherwise, in front of a male audience was powerful and breathtaking. I hold on to that. 

What/who influenced you to become a poet, and how did they inspire you? 

My greatest influence and cheerleader is Maria Ciccone. She curated the order of the chapters and the poems in The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder and helped me define my voice. I’ll never forget what she told me about The Aftermath, which is the final chapter in my collection. “The final chapter looks toward your future, your current voice—which is bold, courageous, and empowering women,” Maria reminded me. At the time that we were editing the manuscript together, I was also writing my first novel, All These Things I Never Said. She introduced me to National Novel Writing Month in November, and we’d drive over the hills after work to her house and drink wine and eat bread and cheese and work on our novel manuscripts. When I would finish a project or a poem, and I wouldn’t know what to do next, she would give me this sage advice: “Just keep writing”. She turned me into a writer because she made me believe I could be one. 

How many finished books do you have? 

Every year for my birthday, I try to do something I’ve never done before. When I turned 27, I self-published The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder. My first poetry collection was once my diary in 2015-2016, where I wrote about my first adult relationship and breakup, and later about the death of my sister. It’s a short poetry book that explores a tumultuous year of love, heartbreak, and all kinds of unimaginable loss. Each poem is an emotional timestamp that plunges the reader into the depths of my feelings as the time, as they burgeoned and waned. It chronicles the things that we all feel: passion, heartache, and pain that gives way to hope. You can check it out for yourself here: www.ehristova.com 

What is your writing process like? 

Usually I begin with a line or two that floats around in my head about a feeling, experience or sensation I have. It could be in response to looking at something meaningful, like a sunset or a painting. I write the line or two in my notebook or phone, and when I revisit them, I’ll write more to create a complete piece. My best inspiration comes when I’m overwhelmed by powerful emotions. They’ll spill onto the page as I imagine metaphors, similes, and analogies to represent the feelings in written form. I’ve always felt that as a poet, I paint with words. What I do with my work is I use words to paint what I feel on the inside of my heart. 

Instagram
Book(s)
Website