Meet Meliza Bañales

We were lucky to catch up with Meliza Bañales recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Meliza with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

I definitely get my work ethic from two key places: my family of origin and slam. My family’s work ethic helped build this country. My father spent his childhood and youth as a Mexican-American migrant farmworker working the fields in Fresno with my grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. My brothers and I also worked in the summers as kids in Fresno and Corcoran as we come from two large, proud migrant families that have worked the fields in California since the early 1900s. My great-grandfather helped build the Kansas City Railroad that connected California to the Midwest. My mother’s family were also farmers. There is something about being from people who know how to make things grow. It always starts small, with a seed. Looking at a seed, it’s almost impossible to believe that it can grow into something else, something that can feed you or even house you. But that is what a seed can do if you plant it, give it attention, and wait. Not watch, but wait. I think dreams are like that too. You keep building towards them until one day, you’re there, you are the dream, and it feels like magic but really it was a strong, steady work ethic. It was the belief that I had to get up early to take care of things. Mornings are very productive for me. My father grew up to become a satellite engineer for NASA and my mother served in the United States military. Being a kid who also comes from a family of science, my work ethic is actually pretty strong and rooted in logic which I know might seem strange for a creative or artist! But I think having a practical as well as patient work ethic when it comes to my writing and performance has given me stamina and longevity— I know that if I plant seeds and attend to them, success can follow. I also know that I can plant lots of seeds, I can be lots of people, do many projects— this also builds a strong work ethic: knowing that each day I can do something for my art. Slam has also given me a strong work ethic. When I came up in slam in the 90s one had to have a strong work ethic! There were no non-profits doing slam at the time, no teachings or trainings— the training ground were the slams themselves. If you wanted to keep up in poetry slam at that time, you had to always be working. A poet had to slam at least every week and new work was expected every week as audiences could get fickle. Slam taught me not to take anything for granted. Being on slam teams taught me discipline as well as accountability. As a work ethic, slam taught me to practice and to take time and pride in my practice as well as have a place for my mistakes. This keeps me creating, letting the work get messy, and allows me to keep learning.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I think what I do is simple: I cause radical trouble as much as possible! I spend my time doing dead arts like writing books and making records so that I and hopefully others can live. I like being a professional big-mouth, which is what I think a writer and slam champion really is. I like telling stories, my story, your story, all of it. I love being on stages and I love making the world my stage. I write for outcasts, rebels, outlaws, weirdos, punks, Queers, Chicanos, underdogs, & mi gente because too often they are excused, dismissed, and underestimated. I am primarily known as a protest poet as well as a psychedelic-indie-sleaze-clown who writes for the sake of making sure the underground is not erased. I am the 2025 Winner of the BlackBerry Peach Written & Spoken Word Contest, the author of six books in two genres, and a Lambda Literary Finalist. I live where the clubs are dirty, you only know people by first names, the music is always loud, and the best place to write a poem is on a break in the alley out back. I spend my time supporting other writers, building poetry slams, editing and publishing new writers, and creating opportunities for writers to keep working. I also laugh a lot too. What is most exciting about what I do is that despite how much work it is, it never gets boring. There is always a new voice or someone who has just landed in LA waiting to share their story. I always tell people at a slam to look around the audience, because in that very audience there is a champion waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves. I love watching people who have never been on a stage own that stage in just a few open mics. I also spend my time ending fascism and while it is not always fun, I am excited to see so many people ready to fight for their voice and for others. It’s always a good day to fight fascism and I’m looking forward to performing my winning poem this summer in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the BlackBerry Peach Poetry Slam.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back the three most important qualities that impacted my journey have been: kindness, reciprocity, and workshopping. When it comes to being a writer you might be creating alone but you’re not doing it alone. It will take other people to help your book or poems get in the souls of other people. The truth is much of the work in publishing and in slam is hard work that is not always paid what it should be. Sometimes it’s free labor that made a book or slam team happen and when this occurs, you can bet that kindness will be your greatest act of gratitude. Kindness, even when it hurts to be kind, will get you a lot farther. This was how I got jobs in film too. I wasn’t at the level of great writers starting out, but because I was a hard-worker, memorable, and kind folks were willing to mentor me and see if I could be great. Reciprocity is also important. Very, very few writers “just write”. No way! Almost all writers, at least in America, do more than just write. They host events. Write grants for others. Edit and publish anthologies. They are slammasters running regular slams. They teach and they train other writers. Writers don’t just do this for extra paychecks— they also do it to be good literary citizens. They do it because helping a writer who has helped them matters and keeps literature happening. I practice reciprocity the most because so many of us still struggle to obtain opportunities even if we deserve them. It’s important that writers know I appreciate how they’ve helped me and I want to help in return. Workshopping writing is a must. No, you don’t have to attend a fancy MFA program or an exclusive residency to workshop— but workshopping your writing in a small group of other writers where more than just the surface is discussed is important. And to be honest, I’m very thankful for my MFA as well as places like Tin House accepting me as a summer fellow because these workshops changed my life. They trained me to critique and accept critique. They trained me to defend my choices as well as let go of what I didn’t need. I hear so many writers say they are struggling with craft and I always tell them: get into a workshop or form a group (even if it’s for one day or a couple hours). Good, original writing these days needs many eyes on it. The community that can come through in workshopping is also helpful. A lot of networking and chances happen in workshop. My best advice for those early in their journey is be open to opportunity and allow yourself to get better over time. So many writers want success right now, right away. Who doesn’t?! Writers are so hard on themselves. They always think they should be in a different place in their careers than they are now, no matter how successful they are. Many writers want to hit a home run and they beat themselves up because maybe a book or film took a long time or it failed, it didn’t hit like they wanted. That’s normal! I promise! Not all your books or films or plays or slam poems will hit but you’ll write more. Be open to opportunity because even failure is an opportunity. Remember that opportunities are big and small, so take chances on small readings, do some readings for free as you start out, gift your performance to others if you can because it will be returned. Stay in touch with people and support their work— many offer opportunities to people who have shown up to their clubs, their slams, and their events so be a strong, caring audience to other writers. Allow yourself time to get better. If you are putting in real time to work on your writing I guarantee that the poems you wrote at the beginning of the year are different than now. The poems you wrote a month ago are different than now. Give yourself some reasonable timelines so that you can grow. To create work that people define their lives by, work that people hold close to them when they are down, or work that inspires people takes consistency, risk, and time. Have ganas as we say in Spanish. Have courage.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

I think my greatest challenge is not giving up hope in these very hard times and remembering that art matters so keep creating. Being an American artist I have had to overcome this challenge often. I live in a country that claims there are so many freedoms and opportunities to speak, yet I cannot. My books have been banned and as cool as that might sound, it’s actually terrifying and devastating. So much work goes into to making a book and to see it be banned, just unavailable in an entire state, is tragic and sad for those who might need it. I write books I didn’t have growing up so to have books, my books, disappear can be difficult. I have had heartbreak and loss of friendship within the poetry community of Los Angeles and this has made me have doubt as well as challenged my self-esteem. But I keep writing. I keep performing. I continue to make poets my priority and show up for them. I remember that broken things can be fixed. I remember that there were many times in the past when I thought I was a goner, I’m done for. But I wasn’t. In fact, all of those times I thought it was gonna be over it was really a time of turning breakdowns into breakthroughs. I’ve been working to listen better, offer grace to others, and know myself better. I’ve been less emotional about my missteps and more practical about them, as hardships can build strength. I resolve to choose wisdom and the high-road now rather than anger and holding onto the past. I keep writing books. In fact, the more they get banned the more books I write! I’m overcoming this challenge by choosing my work and remembering that in the hardest, most cruel of times— when the world feels like a hole— I have this ability to manage it, to question it, and to help it when I choose to write and make art. When we get through these bad days, folks are going to want to know what art was being made and how we survived. So I’m resolving to keep working, even though it feels useless, because I can still choose it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://melizabanales.wordpress.com/
• Instagram: missyfuego
• Facebook: Meliza Bañales
• Youtube: Missy Fuego