Our class had the pleasure of having Carlos Hernandez come and speak with us about digital publishing and how he got to where he is today with his career. We also had the opportunity to ask him questions and really get our questions answered about him. Although I was not able to make it to his book reading, I am really glad he was able to come and speak with our class.
He started by giving us some really good insight about poems and digital publishing along with some tips for those who want to become writers of all kinds for later down the road. Our class found out that publishing poetry is expensive in print due to all of the line breaks but in digital publishing the cost does not change. Digital publishing also allows for much more interaction than paper publishing because of links and hypertext. He specifically talked about his one poem “In Lieu of the Stories My Santera Abuela Should Have Told Me Herself, This Poem”, and actually read it to our class for everyone to get the chance to listen to it. He took real life scenarios about his family that his mother told him and turned it into a piece of work. He made us realize that a lot of writing comes from hard things that have happened in peoples lives.
Not only does Carlos have poems and short stories but he also just signed a 2 book publishing deal with Disney. He told us that this all started by someone reading his works and passing it along to people and before he knew it he was signing a deal. This is where one of his major points came in to start writing now and take the rejection and build on your skills and grow as a writer to improve and make connections because you never know who is reading you work on the web. His final touch was on how writing and publishing is a new world for women and people of color because it is allowing them to tell their stories. They have the ability to use their own voices and tell their own personal stories instead of having someone do research and write on a topic they are not really familiar with.
Overall, it was a pleasure to have Carlos in class and I gained a lot of great insight about digital publishing and how great it is to have and know. He gave great advice to our whole class and hopefully those who want to become writers or poets got a lot of great insight on what they need to do to succeed and grow their careers.