Playing Around With Language

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If you're someone who has not felt in ed into this world, i haven't felt like i identify with the ability to play with language. What are maybe three things that i can do to start playing around with it and start feeling like i own it andn can pull joy out of it? Ye, there's something that a, linda barry was amazing, aazing, mazing cartonist, a, she called the word bag. And so if you draw a bag, and your like, no book, and it's like your word bag, and, you know, just notice e words that you repeat a lot, instad of writing them down again. Ah

Do you remember the first time you used “Google” as a verb? Or a time before there were “selfies”? Language is constantly evolving, and as a result provides limitless opportunities to change how we see the world. Juli Delgado Lopera is the author of the acclaimed novel “Fiebre Tropical” (Feminist Press 2020), which was recently awarded the LAMBDA Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction. A Colombian now living in the U.S., Juli breaks down boundaries of English and Spanish in their work by de-stabilizing our notions of language, gender, and geography. In today’s episode, they explain the benefits of bending the rigid structures that language upholds and suggest exercises that can help us appreciate and find joy in words. “Fiebre Tropical” was a finalist of the 2020 Kirkus Prize in Fiction and the 2021 Aspen Literary Prize. Juli is also the author of “¡Cuéntamelo!” (Aunt Lute 2017), an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories by LGBT Latinx immigrants. Their work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in places such as Teen Vogue, The Kenyon Review, McSweeney's, The Rumpus, The White Review, LALT, Four Way Review, Broadly, and TimeOut Mag. They are the former executive director of RADAR Productions, a queer literary non-profit in San Francisco.