Because the way we talk about disabled people, it’s never as if we’re real. What is her place in the world as an immigrant who is struggling to fit in? And the mermaids captured so much of what she’s feeling, and they were an outward reflection, not just her joy and her desires and her dreams, but also what it means to have a body like hers that is often almost mythologized. How Vero, because she struggled so much with her body image and it not being symmetrical and her literally not having her hip socket properly placed in her body, that reflects how she feels. And so, to make a long story short, I think for me, the idea of mermaids and their mythology really reflected the hybridity, the fluidity of our identities. I think sometimes when we speak about diversity it almost feels like publishing can only handle one at a time. It wasn’t until maybe four or five years ago that I realized that I wanted to write not just about hip dysplasia and disability, but also about what it means to be a Latina, what it means to be an immigrant, to have all of these parts coexisting inside of you and not being fragmented. Even since I was young, I was writing about my hip dysplasia and my surgeries, but in essays that I sent to teen magazines that never got published. It lived in my imagination all these years, and I never really knew what to do with it until it actually ended up providing the framework for this whole story-because I knew I wanted to write really my whole life. When I lived in central Florida, we lived nearby Weeki Wachee, which is the park that Mermaid Cove is based on. And it’s something that always has struck me. I think like a lot of people, I was fascinated by mermaids as a child. What made you want to incorporate that into your novel? And in your author’s note, you highlight some of the real-life inspiration on the Mermaid Cove in your story.
Your protagonist Verónica adores the mythology of mermaids, and this story dives into their many historical and cultural variations.
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