Were you trying to present a counter to toxic masculinity? He has a big heart, he’s not afraid to show emotions, and he’s prone to public acts of contrition. Sal doesn’t feel like your average teenage boy. You never know what’s inside you until you probe, and apparently, I had this 13-year-old kid waiting to get out as soon as he had the chance. It turns out I’m a seventh grader at heart, because it was very easy to slip into the younger Sal’s voice. So it took me a while to think of what I’d write for this sort of thing. I have a PhD in English, and I always thought I’d end up writing literary science fiction or fantasy for a small audience, and if it was critically well-received, that would be okay with me. Did you ever plan to write for children like this?Īctually, it wasn’t one of my aspirations. Your previous stories were aimed at adults.
I feel super lucky to be able to reach such a large audience and be in the company of such great writers. I gave Lurie a 20,000-word write-up and outline, and here we are. So the Rick Riordan Presents imprint expanded to accommodate that. I wanted to do something different, though, something that talked more about culture and which was more science fiction. He’d been asked by his fans to address other mythologies, like Indian or Mexican, but he didn’t feel comfortable doing so, so he looked for other authors to write Percy Jackson-like stories instead. She’d brought in the first few authors for the imprint, including Roshani Chokshi and J.C. Rick read it, and thought, “Hey, Carlos might be a good fit for my imprint.” He introduced me to Stephanie Lurie, his editor at Disney. That’s the bonus of writing in a multiversal setting.Īnd that collection is what brought you to Rick Riordan’s attention? Obviously, these versions of the characters are somewhat different from their younger selves, but that’s where they originated. That was also the title story for my collection of short stories, which was published by Rosarium Press. The adult Gabi Reális a reporter who studies cryptozoology, such as unicorns that leak through from another dimension, as seen in the story “The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory.” The adult Sal Vidón appears in a story called “The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria,” which was published in Interfictions 2, edited by Delia Sherman and Christopher Barzak.
Sal & Gabi Break the Universe uses characters that I had written as adults but as middle schoolers. PW spoke with Hernandez about the origins of the book. In this debut middle grade adventure by author Carlos Hernandez, the fourth release in Disney’s Rick Riordan Presents imprint, the titular characters bond over family issues, Cuban food, and Sal’s ability to open portals between dimensions, which could conceivably destroy the universe.
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