Tiny Interview #4 - Tara Isabel Zambrano


Here we ask authors we admire to share their musings on art and writing, spill their current reading obsessions, and give us a tiny wedge into their creative life. In this Tiny Interview, meet Tara Isabel Zambrano whose piece "Some Sort of Code" was published in Issue Six of Tiny Molecules.

(Interviewed by Cameron Finch)



Q: What book(s) are you reading right now?

A: Gods of Want by K-Ming Chang. The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin HouseMy Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales.

Q: What are your current writing projects?

A: One flash, three short stories - all Magical Realism.

Q: Do any other art forms influence your writing? If so, how?

A: I love to listen to Indian music, especially ghazals. They bring the lyrical flavor to my writing.

Q: Where is your favorite place to write, and do you have any writing rituals?

A: My desk, no rituals, just whenever I can find time to write. It may be at the beginning of the day or at the end of it, or sandwiched between my work projects during the week.

Q: Who is a writer you wish more people were reading?

A: In general, I feel people should read more South Asian Literature and more translations to embrace themselves to all the diversity we have in the world. I'd particularly love to give a shout-out to The Seven Moons of Maali Almeda by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka and When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar. And as for translation efforts, Jenny Bhatt's newsletter, "We Are All Translators" has a wealth of translation titles! 


Tara Isabel Zambrano is a writer of color and the author of Death, Desire, and Other Destinations, a full-length flash collection by OKAY Donkey Press. Her work has won the first prize in The Southampton Review Short Short Fiction Contest 2019, a second prize in Bath Flash Award 2020, been a Finalist in Bat City Review 2018 Short Prose Contest and Mid-American Review Fineline 2018 Contest. Her flash fiction has been published in The Best Small Fictions 2019, The Best Micro Fiction 2019, 2020 Anthology. She lives in Texas.