I never thought my work would be published and even after it was, I never imagined it would go anywhere. Loverboys is full of irony and surprises, like little pearls of joy interlaced throughout. She pulls the reader completely into her world. Perhaps there is magic all around us, there to be seen by anyone who dares to look, but we are socialized to tune it out. In this way Ana Castillo is free to explore her creativity.
Real life is never very far behind even the most way-out stories.
Castillo relates a little anecdote, not directly intended to illustrate anything in particular, yet very much at the heart of the genre she represents. She and her friends walked into a cantina out in the middle of nowhere in Mexico. The entertainment that night was a female impersonator who made it known, without fully knowing who was in the audience, that he was impersonating Ana Castillo. Now that she has enjoyed success, she is eager to help new poets and has recently established the Premio Ana Castillo, based in Chicago. Castillo sees enormous benefits in having grown up in a metropolitan city.