The Advocates: Gabino Iglesias

Welcome to our spring/summer series, The Advocates. We wanted to pay tribute to the bloggers, writers, book stores, fairs, conferences, organizations, teachers, and anyone/anything else who has helped us, or the crime fiction community, on our writing and publishing journey. The Advocates is the result.

Gabino Iglesias

By Jennifer Hillier

Not a day goes by when I don’t click onto Twitter and Facebook and brace myself. Social media depletes me as much as it fills me up. As a writer, it’s hard not have a place in it. Most publishing news is shared through these channels, and it’s how I communicate with other writers about work – both the struggles and the joy.

But to get to the good stuff, I have to weed through so much crap and negativity. People fight about everything. And on social media, things escalate fast. People say stuff to each other online that they’d likely never say to each other in person. Why? Because the internet makes everyone a keyboard warrior, and also, the internet is dumb.

Still, there’s no denying the sense of community and support. I still remember the first time I discovered the #amwriting hashtag on Twitter years ago – it was like finding my people. Hallelujah, I wasn’t the only one crazy enough to try and write a book! I wasn’t the only one struggling with it! Discovering that I wasn’t alone in navigating my way through the publishing storm was what got me through writing that first book and the five that have followed. Because the only thing harder than getting published is staying published.

Writers need friends. More so than that, writers need champions. There are amazing people in the writing community who build others up, who are passionate about books and the people who write them. When I think about these folks, one person in particular comes to mind.

For me, these tweets are rays of sunshine that break through the dark, exhausting clouds of Twitter. Which is why, for “The Advocates” series, I chose to spotlight Gabino Iglesias.

It’s hard to sum up Gabino in a paragraph. His work has appeared in the New York Times, NPR, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He’s a columnist for LitReactor and CLASH Media. He’s the book reviews editor for PANK Magazine. He’s a teacher. He has a Ph.D. – we really should be calling him Dr. Iglesias. He’s the author of the novel ZERO SAINTS. His newest book, COYOTE SONGS, is nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. (COYOTE SONGS, by the way, is one of my favorite books from 2018.)

But while all of that is extremely impressive, my most favorite thing about Gabino – and I suspect most of his fellow writers’ most favorite thing about him – is that he’s our biggest fucking cheerleader. He’s the writing coach we didn’t know we needed, the kind who’ll come to your house at six a.m. and yank your lazy ass out of bed, all the while reminding you how great you are, and that yes, you can do this. And that you’re not alone. He’s there beside you, hustling, pushing, encouraging.

He’s proud of his author friends and he reviews and promotes their books even more than he does his own. He’s a fierce supporter of women authors and LGBTQ authors, and he’s vocal about the need for diversity in publishing.

He’s a reminder that our own worst obstacles are ourselves. And no matter what stage of publishing you’re in, you have something to offer. You are valuable. You matter. And he sees you. And he doesn’t do this with sunshine and rainbows (sunshine and rainbows are more my thing), he does it with brutal honesty and a genuine belief that you can be whatever you want to be.

Two words come to mind when I think about him, and they are blunt positivity.

There are a thousand more things that I could say about him, and would, if I had the space. But I’ll let Gabino’s words speak for themselves.

Build your happiness. Words to live by.

Thanks for the reminder, Gabino.

Jennifer Hillier is a novelist who writes about dark, twisted people who do dark, twisted things. She was born and raised in Toronto but spent eight years in Seattle, which is where all her books are set. She loves her son, her husband, the Seahawks, and Stephen King (not equally, but close) and is the author of five psychological thrillers. Find her on the web at jenniferhillier.ca.

To learn more about Hillier’s most recent novel, which was recently nominated for a 2019 ITW Thriller Award, click HERE.