Marvel’s first Latinx writer is on a mission to spread joy and acceptance through her work. A campus visit this spring was rescheduled due to COVID-19, but in this interview with Inside UNI — shared now in honor of Pride Month — she shares her inspiring message and updates on her latest projects.

Growing up, Gabby Rivera didn’t read comics, because so many popular comic book characters represented the things she was not — tall, muscular, white, heterosexual, male. She didn’t know it then, but she would grow up to start writing her own stories that reflected her life as a queer Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx — including, to her own surprise, a Marvel comic book series. Rivera was Marvel’s first Latinx writer, and she wrote their first series centered on a lesbian, Latinx character. (Latinx is a gender-neutral version of Latino/Latina, which has become widely-used in recent years.) Now, she writes her own original comic book series that explores her identities in a futuristic world, and recently launched a podcast aimed at creating a “Joy Revolution.”

Rivera, 37, had planned to give her keynote presentation, “Inspiring Radical Creativity; Empowering Young, Diverse Voices to Tell Their Own Stories,” on campus in March. Her talk, which was rescheduled due to COVID-19, she will be coming to campus the week before RodCon on April 6, 2021. Her visit is part of the Love and Inclusion Swoop into the Cedar Valley project, a series of events surrounding diversity and inclusion leading up to RodCon that was partially funded by a Humanities of Iowa grant.

“We were completely heartbroken that Gabby could not visit as planned but are extremely grateful that Gabby and Humanities of Iowa have rescheduled for April 2021,” said Rod Library spokeswoman Melinda Beland.

InsideUNI had the chance to interview Rivera over the phone ahead of her planned March visit. In this exclusive Q&A, Rivera gives a preview of her planned talk and details on her upcoming projects.

Can you talk about your background? What was your life like growing up? 

I’m a queer Puerto Rican writer from the Bronx. I was a chubby, nerdy happy kid, but I never got picked for the sports team. So I wrote all the time. Writing has just always been something I stuck with, especially because it’s just been the safest place for me. The homophobia and transphobia I experienced made it seem like I wasn’t going to have a future, like there was no space to be in the world. So writing was that place where I could do whatever I want and be who I want. I’m on a mission to create and tell the wildest, most abundant, joyful stories that I can; stories that center queer, trans, nonbinary people of color, and what it means to live in our ancestral triumph.

Why do you feel so passionate about writing about your own identities as a queer, Puerto Rican woman? What do you hope writing about your identities will accomplish?

I look at queerness as this majestic gift that saved my life, because it gave me the insight to realize that the universe is mine to recreate and reimagine myself as I see fit. And so in a world that tells you what kind of girl you should be, that you should have a specific gender; in a world that tells you that you are not valuable because of your skin or because of your ability — my queerness and my ethnicity, my Puerto Rican-ness, my chubbiness, are all the things that dictate that I get to just do whatever I want. I get to live in the world that I create, and your rules don’t apply to me. Everything I do is going to be to fight back and disrupt all of that. I put that in my work; I put things that make me feel safe and seen. 

You were Marvel’s first Latinx writer, writing their first comic centered on a lesbian, Latina super hero. How did it feel to bring some of your own identities into a genre that hasn’t always been the best at supporting diversity?

It was a wild time, it was pretty cool. I love that there’s this connection to the Marvel Universe and to be the first Latina to write for Marvel is just pretty amazing. I hope there’s a million more coming. I hope that a whole bunch of other folks pick up America Chavez’s story. I want to kick that door wide open, and I hope that’s what is happening. Write for yourself and write for your communities. I didn’t write for anyone’s approval, I didn’t write it to get into any workshop or nothing like that. And look — Marvel found that. Marvel found [my debut novel] “Juliet Takes a Breath” because they wanted an authentic voice for America Chavez. So I’m not here chasing after some imagined sense of success or whatever. I’m doing me and what is mine finds me. 

Now I’m working with BOOM! Studios and it's such a supportive environment, and it is its own queer, funky little loving place. And I want to show folks — that number-one company, it might not be the place where you flourish and shine. That might not be the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is what success and community and support look like for you. At BOOM!, I've got all this support. I've got all this excitement, there's a lot of joy and love. So I'm really happy. Both have been really big learning experiences. I'm really happy where I am right now.

After writing your own original story with “Juliet Takes a Breath,” then getting experience with comic book writing with the America Chavez series, you wrote your first original comic book, “B. b. Free.” Can you talk about this project? How did the idea come about? 

My first book, “Juliet Takes a Breath” is literally a love letter to queer, chubby brown babes everywhere that your identity, and who you are, is what you have and you should celebrate it. We’re not here to cater to anybody else, we’re not here to get the mainstream to love us. That’s not what queerness is. Queerness is absolute resolve to be who you are no matter what. A lot of our LGBTQ family, a lot of our black family, a lot of our Latinx, undocumented family, they don’t get to experience another day, they don’t get to have their next breath. And so as queer people of color, as Puerto Rican queers, whatever you are, it is your duty and your right to be exactly who you are. And so I put that into my work with “Juliet Takes a Breath.” With B. b. Free, that’s my projection of queer and trans kids of color into the future because folks are always trying to stomp us out. So B. b. Free is queer, Puerto Rican, chubby, 200 years in the future on an adventure; happy as she wants to be because that is what I imagined and that is what will be. 

You just launched a podcast, “Joy Revolution” and it aims to “build healing revolutionary joy.” Why focus on joy? 

The next big thing is the podcast, “Gabby Rivera’s Joy Revolution,” where I talk to queer trans people of color who I know and love who are my friends and mentors and allies. Folks I look up to, who I can ask, ‘How do you prioritize joy? How do you keep joy in your life?’ I wanted to talk to people specifically about joy because we deserve it. In my career, I know I reference my identities a lot, and I know that we use our identities to connect and build community. But also deep down, we’re spiritual beings that need care and joy and when our interactions get mired and soaked in our sadness, it can be hard to individually hold joy and collectively build joy. And so for me participating and facilitating these conversations has helped me personally and spiritually. The hope is that it offers my people, all people, joy. Like, ‘Here, this is how I do it. Fill your cup a little bit.’

The name of your keynote address you’ll give ahead of the 2021 Rodcon is “Inspiring Radical Creativity; Empowering Young, Diverse Voices to Tell Their Own Stories.” What is “radical creativity?”

What radical creativity means to me — I think the act of just creating in a society that is literally trying to hound you within an inch of your life is a radical act. Choosing yourself, existing, choosing to breathe, to take a breath, to pause and find yourself in the middle of all this madness is radical  — is revolution. And in LGBTQ communities, we are also people who are constantly reinventing, resurrecting and reclaiming ourselves. We must. I feel like we’re also ahead of the game. We are on this accelerated evolution. We are the universe. I fully believe that. Everybody else is just trying to catch up. And so when we stand around and we talk about it, we let folks in. You’re gonna get queer Latinx joy. That is what I have to offer you. I’m sharing that because then you get to tap into your own and run super free. When you trust yourself and you can finally love yourself, look at all the magic that is possible.