We’re so excited to welcome Alex Salinas to the team as our Content Manager! Alex previously worked at St. Mary’s University (also his alma mater!) as Associate Director of Communication Writing and Storytelling and at San Antonio Express-News as a reporter. For his first storytelling assignment at SA2020, we asked him to tell us about himself. Get to know Alex!
What brought you to SA2020?
Someone dear to me informed me about the position of Content Manager for SA2020 and after looking into it, I made the decision to leave working in higher education—a seven-year experience that positively altered my life professionally and personally. I hope to use the storytelling abilities I gained working for newspapers and in academia and apply them in my new role, to further illuminate the many crucial moving parts related to our city’s community vision.
What are you most excited about in your new role?
Giving voice to stories unfolding across the city, especially those belonging to our underrepresented, which is daunting, humbling and an absolute honor.
What do you do when you’re not working?
I’m a voracious reader of fiction and poetry, and when I’m not reading, I’m likely writing or editing, or walking/hiking, or engaged (hopefully) in meaningful conversation, or spending a little too much time on YouTube watching author interviews and documentaries.
Or I very well may be spacing out with a cup of black coffee in hand.
What might we find if we Google you?
Most likely my published stories and poems, but please don’t judge them (too) harshly.
What’s something interesting about you that may surprise others?
I’m terrible at answering this question and so I asked someone dear to me. Her response via text: “You taste words.”
Which is mostly true—I believe the word for this is synesthesia. To be clear, it’s not the case that every time I or others speak, I taste a banquet. (Wouldn’t that be a nightmare?) It happens more when I stop and think about individual words. The word words, for example, tastes to me like…sweet corn.
With which organization did you last volunteer?
San Antonio Youth Literacy’s Reading Buddy Program. Reading to second-graders for a school year was a life-changing experience.
What is your favorite thing about San Antonio?
Two things (because I’m incapable of picking one favorite): countless opportunities to enjoy delicious breakfast tacos, and the genuinely cordial nature of most of our residents. Sometimes, for no good reason, people here are just nice to you, such as offering a warm smile and a hello.
If you had a superpower, what would it be?
To dunk a basketball like prime Vince Carter with both my bad knees.
What’s on your bucket list?
To pen a poem from the comfort of a Parisian or Spanish café, and to publish the novel I finished writing in April 2021.
Favorite book(s)?
C’mon! Okay, here are some standout books I’ve read in 2021:
- Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra (but really, all his books)
- Little Labors by Rivka Galchen
- In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
- Written Lives by Javier Marias
- Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli
- How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti
- Space Invaders by Nona Fernández
- An Incomplete List of Names by Michael Torres
- The Sombrero Galaxy by Aaron Rudolph (a wonderful friend of mine)
- Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas
