Marianne Villanueva discusses her new anthology, Residents of the Deep

Short, long, flash, story writer — “A very frustrated journalist, deep down.” Filipino, American, shaped by the shadows of Spanish colonialization. Science fiction, speculative, folk-horror, contemporary, and everything in between, Marianne Villaneuva is redefining and reconfiguring genres and identity every day. 

I had the pleasure of speaking with Villaneuva after reading her newest short-story anthology, “Residents of the Deep”, merely one piece in her long list of acclaimed collections, novellas, and short stories. Our conversation wound around a variety of topics, growing up in the Philippines, moving to America, the impact of Spanish colonization on her culture, and its everyday practices. I believe this conversation accurately reflected “Residents of the Deep” itself. It's everything; it's colonial legacy, religion, regret, resilience, identity, and more.

“Residents of the Deep” was born and largely written in Ireland. During a writer's residency, Villaneuva found sailing logs and was inspired to write the title story, latent with anchors and nautical miles and stretches of oceans and creaking washboards. The whole anthology adopts this name for multiple reasons, one being that the initial story was a work of perseverance; Villaneuva finally found a publisher after being rejected many times. Another being, the “Residents of the Deep” as a whole, is a letter of longing. Growing up on an island, as Villaneuva describes, “really determined our thinking … There’s always this wanting to go out of the island, to not want to be so isolated. It summed up the whole collection for me. Even traveling is connected to the fact that I’m from a small island.”

This is woven throughout. In a favorite story of mine, “The Essence of Spain”, the protagonist discusses their plans to abandon their regular life to live in Spain. This is decided after their companion, through a series of letters, has conjured an idea of Spain being an idyllic place. We don’t know if theyre going to follow through, who theyre talking about, or if this is just a fantasy, which makes this piece very magical and a little haunting. But Villaneuva’s articulation of wanderlust is entangled throughout the collection. 

The collection itself is a medley of genres. Villaneuva said she “didn’t know whether it would all work together - I just crossed my fingers that I’d find the right readers”. Luckily for me, I was the right reader, and I hope this article reaches others who are, too. There is a genre in here for everyone, and despite being described as a haphazard throwing together of stories, they work. There is this essence of desire, for travel, for companionship, for knowledge, truth, moral righteousness, that can be found throughout. 

As introduced, Villaneuva is not bound by genre or category. She describes herself, and all of us, as people who “change till the day we die - so I’m confident I will never run out of material”. Villaneuva outlined how she grabs inspiration for her works, through news, through family history, through historical heritage, and, for this work especially, through sailing archives.

Despite being a constantly evolving and growing character, Villaneuva is constantly inspired by the past as well. She is a hoarder of inspiration, having kept “every scrap” of writing she has ever produced. The 300-year colonialization of the Spanish empire was very prominent in her work. Having grown up in the Philippines, she describes it as a ”wrenching experience of encountering the West to a greater degree than any other asian country”. When discussing this impact on her life, she elucidated all of the ways in which the Spanish have infiltrated her culture, from religion to names. 

Another personal favorite from the anthology was “Who Owns This Land?”, which is a piece of flash fiction that succinctly represents Spanish colonialism and sacrilege. It’s a dialogue between natives who are bewildered by the Spanish conquest of power under the guise of religious pursuit. The protagonist thinks, ‘He had never met anyone who put Spain on a higher footing than God’ (P. 160). Villaneuva ”dreamed this conversation… it seemed to capture the [Spanish colonizer] arrogance.” Our discussion of this was extremely fruitful, as she delineated how the Spanish pushed their sphere of influence under the guise of a religious establishment.

However, Villuenva also asserts that “our people are very adaptable”. And this is a thematic undertone of the text itself. Despite the trials and tribulations many characters face, they endure. The remnants of her childhood in the Philippines are present throughout the texts, from the mentions of island living, her homeland Negroes, and longing. But she also has a strong duality, having spent the majority of her life now in America after moving there for graduate school. 

In the same fashion that stories seem to stumble upon her, her career as a writer seemed to appear in the same suit. Having initially moved to California for  East Asian studies, she audited a creative course by chance at Stanford, and the chair encouraged her to apply for the creative writing program there. She went home and ground out the assigned 50 pages and received a letter back — she had been accepted as one of the 12 fellows out of thousands of applicants. This is unsurprising when reading her work. Her duality of living in many places at once, her brain being across the world from her body, creates a fascinating dynamic in her writing. She is not bound to any land, genre, or style. 

Since Villuenva is an ever-changing writer, journalist, storyteller, all of the above. I hope we can all look forward to her future works. Keep an eye out for all of the exciting projects she has planned. She is publishing a new short story, “Hunger,” with Villain Era magazine. Additionally, her novel “The Desolation”, which is inspired by the occupation of her grandfather's house by the Japanese during WWII,  is forthcoming. You can also find her poems, such as “Ghosts” and "Hydrozoans," published with Low Hanging Fruit.