Rolling the R’s “Blame it on Chachi”

Rolling the R’s“Blame it on Chachi” R. Zamora Linmark

R. Zamora Linmark • Born in Manila, Philippines • Educated at University of Hawaii • Pursued a degree in Theatre • Currently resides in San Francisco, CA

His work has appeared in The Best Gay Fiction of 1997, Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of Asian North American Poetry, and Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Asian American Contemporary Fiction, edited by Jessica Hagedorn. Rolling the R's is his first novel.

Motivation • Studied theatre because it allowed him to “exercise his text.” • Found that theater did not offer texts that he could relate to, none written by Filipino-Americans, Filipinos, or even Asians.

Learned that to become a writer, you have to be honest to the page, in order to write in a voice that is true to you.

This is apparent in his narrative structures, his experiments in diction, and his way of shedding light on gay identity and assimilation, as shown in his novel, Rolling the R's.

“While Linmark's personal identity, experiences, and beliefs are seen in his work, he finds fixed values constrain his writing, his role, and his identity as a writer. Rather, he does not focus on his history in order to allow himself to go into unexplored writing styles and ideas.” -Taken from “Magandamagazine” interview

“I think identity is something I cannot avoid. My identities. I don’t think that any Filipinos have a single identity. I really believe that Filipinos, whether they are from here or from the Philippines have the ability to reinvent themselves... I really believe that identity is linked with language and that they work in a symbiotic relationship, that language shapes identity and identity reshapes language, a simultaneous operation working. For me, I use my identity as a springboard to get into this world that I am creating.”

Information • http://www.public.asu.edu/~dejesus/210entries/pama/ • http://www.kaya.com/rtrs-auth.html

Rolling the R’s “Blame it on Chachi”