Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Granillo.
Hi Ashley, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I wrote my first book when I was 5 years old for the Student Author Project at Telfair Elementary School in Pacoima, California. Seeing my ideas unfurl on the page, bound into a forest green hardcover, with my name etched in gold lettering solidified the rest of my writerly journey. Although, I dreamed of being something else then––a nurse, teacher, a popstar…never a writer. Yet––here I am today in my late 30s, a Pura Belprè Honor Award winning author for my 2024 debut middle grade novel, Cruzita and the Mariacheros.
I’d like to think that Cruzita was the story I was building for thirty years, subconsciously. So whether I was aware of it or not, being a writer was absolutely my dream.
During the 2020 COVID lockdown, I was having a bit of a writing crisis. All four of my adult literary fiction novels that I’d written over the past decade were rejected. Some agents were kind enough to include craft books in their rejection letters, suggesting that if I wanted to become a traditionally published author, I needed to hone in a few elements. Having a BA and an MA in creative writing, all while teaching young college students how to write, made those agent suggestions borderline offensive. They must have not thought I was smart enough to write a book. Stubborn to put my English degrees to use, I applied for an MFA. One more degree was likely to put me back on track towards being an author.
Before entering my first semester at UCR Palm Desert that Fall 2020, a friend of mine suggested I write in an entirely new genre: children’s lit. Specifically, “middle grade, because your humor would be so fitting for the genre.” I’d never read children’s lit up until that point, and I was terrified at the thought of not being able to use a curse word in dialogue. But seeing as I had no more ideas left to write about in the adult world, I decided to give it a shot. If anything, writing a shorter novel would be good practice. So, I started where most authors start their children’s books––from the perspective of their younger selves. The lockdown made me long for those beautiful summers in Pacoima with my grandparents, and it also made me question: what if I had said yes to my grandma and the violin she always laid at my feet?
Cruzita started forming from there.
After my grandfather’s death in February 2019, we sold their home of sixty some years and inherited all of their paperwork. In the slush of bills was a document my great uncle Chris had put together––a short memoir, some short stories from each of his siblings about their upbringing. My mom handed it to me and thought I would be interested in knowing a little bit more about my family history. It turns out, my grandma Cruz and her family owned bakeries and shops in Pacoima. Things I’d never heard about. A subtle anger set in, which propelled the little story I was drafting even further along.
Cruzita has to save the bakery. Cruzita has to play the violin. And I kept going…
By that I mean, once I finished Cruzita that year, I began to write another children’s book––Choir Grrrl (Lerner Publishing 2026). I never told anyone in my MFA program, especially my professors, that I was writing these books because I felt a sense of shame for choosing a genre deemed “less literary.” But when Cruizta gave me an agent, and a bookdeal all before I graduated, I had no choice but to come out. I wanted to celebrate.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Some folks celebrated me, and others did suggest that what I had written was “easy” so of course I was being published.
There has been nothing easy about the path to publication. I wish I could say every agent loved Cruzita, but there were racist agents who told me my book was “not credible” because Mexican American children all speak Spanish; there’s no way they cannot if they were exposed to it in the home. There were also gatekeepers in my own community, my own family, suggesting if I wanted to write about Mexican culture, I needed to go there to become “more Mexican.” All throughout the querying, the editing, and the promoting––I still felt that nagging sense of shame, of being an imposter, of not being enough.
But I remembered the little girl with her tiny hands opening and closing her book, hugging her gold name to her chest. To deny her of her dream was to deny myself of my true potential.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Many people know me as author, Ashley Granillo, Pura Belprè Honor Award winning and International Latino Book Awards Finalist. Thus far, my author brand is kids who love music. Kids who struggle with learning how to be musicians or juggling their musicianship in addition to the pressures of conforming to impossible creative standards. This is because, not only am I an author, but I am a songwriter as well.
Songwriting and making records is something I’m equally as proud of in addition to writing. There has always been a melody in me. When I was in elementary school, I would wander to the dusty poetry section of the library and pick out a random book of poems and sing the verses. In my backyard, I would sit with the book for hours finding the rhythm and flow of the words, turning them into something singable, not readable. I suppose that’s where I get my lyrical writing from in general.
I studied poetry loosely in college in addition to fiction, and that one playwriting class I took. Whether written, spoken, sung or performed, fo me, everything I create has a foundation of one common element: storytelling. I am a storyteller, not only one category of creative.
Songwriting is no different. My songwriting coach, Greta Morgan, uses poetry in all of her classes to help us extract the richness of our stories. Putting to use what I used to naturally do as a child, with what more of music I’ve learned as an adolescent and an adult, has helped me alchemize worlds I can’t fit into a book. So, while I don’t think of myself as the best singer or vocalist, or even lyric writer, being able to create those songs at all, has been transformative.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Los Angeles is a funny place. I grew up with creatives as classmates––like legitimate child actors and performers. This meant there was a lot of pressure to be someone else, not yourself. That’s probably the thing I like least about our city. It doesn’t allow you to be authentic. You can be creative––the city breeds that–but with conditions. Those conditions are that your relationships are transactional, and that your appearance is curated to fit the perception of “artist.” If you don’t have artist friends or look the part, you aren’t. People will not take you seriously.
But when you walk along Mural Mile in Pacoima, or come across a mural in Hollywood, the hidden art of Los Angeles reminds you that this city is filled with so many interesting works of art. So many wonders and the people behind them who want to paint or write poetry and make art but not as their job. Art is an essential part of their being. Walking along near some art deco buildings in Downtown reminds me of that artistic essence that we carry with us. I hope that part of this city never dies. And yet…
Third spaces in Los Angeles are disappearing. If we continue down the path of building apartments where concert venues used to be, or make a record store an empty parking lot––we’re deliberately muffling that heartbeat. The best of this city is where artists can connect with each other in community.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ashleygranillo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missashleyjeanwrites/ and https://www.instagram.com/missashleyjeanmusic/
- Other: https://missashleyjean.bandcamp.com/album/off-the-hinge
