Interview: Carlos Mock and Tales of Papi Chulo

Carlos Mock is a fixture in LGBT, Latino, and fiction circles here in Chicago, and now, nationally. He is a physician, novelist, blogger and social commentator. Take a look at his bio, some of the rave reviews, and our conversation that follows.

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a middle class family. Grew up in the San Francisco/Santa María suburb of San Juan and attended Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola prep school where upon graduation escaped to The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Then proceeded to attend the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan where he obtained a Doctor in Medicine degree in 1980.

After an internship in New Orleans and a four-year obstetrics and gynecology residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago he went to work in the private practice in the Chicago suburbs until 1996. Currently, he shares life in Chicago with his life partner, Bill Rattan, and their dogs Mellow and Mocha. Mock is very active in the LGBT community by being on the board of two organizations; Equality Illinois and Orgullo en Acción, and maintains a travel website at: The Pink Agenda. He has five blogs at CTMock and Latino Odyssey, News Summary, Chicago News, and Pink News. Mock publishes a quasi-weekly newsletter with links to articles on a wide range of topics including Finance, Politics, and LGBT news.

Currently Editor of the Floricanto LBGT Latino Line. Floricanto Press, recognizing the void in today’s LGBT Latino Literature, is launching its new line. For that purpose he's been hired to be their Editor coordinating the series. We're interested in creating a network of Latino LGBT writers that will help sell books for each other. Therefore, Floricanto will go through the process of getting the books recognized nationally through the LAMBDA Literary Foundation Awards (Lammies), The Publishing Triangle Awards, and the American Library Association LGBT Roundtable Stonewall Awards. The press will have two titles ready for publication this summer.

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I'd be remiss if I didn't direct you back to the work of this renaissance man. Join me in looking at the critical acclaim for Mock's writing, as well as that conversation I promised.

Lambda Book Report Review, June 28, 2006

This book is mislabeled: Borrowing Time (Floricanto Press) is billed as a Latino sexual odyssey, but it is not. Instead, it is a wonderful story of love and compassion, growth and resolution, mourning and acceptance, and about family - the one you were born in, and the one you make.

Carlos T. Mock has written an engaging book about growing up gay in Puerto Rico, and how it affected the life of the protagonist, Juan Subirá-Rexach. Yet, it is a story of a gay "everyman." Anyone self-aware of themselves and their sexuality at an early age has faced many of the same dilemmas, and made choices - some of which were good, some not so much - as Juan describes.

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Article Author: Lisa Alvarado

Lisa Alvarado is a poet, novelist, and performance artist. She is the author of The Housekeeper's Diary, Reclamo, and Sister Chicas. In 2007, Sister Chicas was the 2nd place winner of the Mariposa/International Latino Book Award for Best 1st Novel in English. …

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    "If self-identity is a crucial issue in this literature, then national identity is what Carlos Mock addresses; and Papi Chulo, actually is the story of a country as seen through the eyes and lives of ...

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