Magic, Memory, and Myth in Provincetown: A Conversation with Russ López

Christine Baker
Dec 19, 2025
10 min read

In this self-interview, author and editor Russ López reflects on the making of Provincetown Stories, a short fiction collection that captures the beauty, contradictions, grief, magic, and enduring spirit of Provincetown. From character development to mythic storytelling, López explores how place shapes identity—and why Ptown remains his lifelong muse.

Provincetown Stories is a collection filled with diverse, eccentric, and often deeply human characters. What was your approach to character development for such a wide cast?

I thought it was extremely important to include the town’s broad range of people, and one thing they all have in common is that they want to be respected for who they are. So that was my starting point: how do they demonstrate their dignity, how do they want to present themselves to the world, and what do they value about themselves? Once I figured out what made a person tick, it was easy to build their world around them.

The town itself feels like a character in the book. How did you go about capturing Provincetown’s personality in your writing?I believe that an author must immerse themselves in a time and place. Ptown is lovably independent and proudly off-kilter. The challenge is not to get so entertained by the eccentricity splashing you in the face that you forget to observe and remember what is happening. If you spend enough time in Ptown, it enters your blood. You hear it, see it, and feel it in your heart. Then it’s just a matter of tapping into your core and letting the words flood out.

Short stories require efficiency and emotional punch. How do you decide what moment or detail is worth focusing on in a short format?

As an editor, I’ve found that a common mistake authors make is trying to do too much in a short story. In 5,000 words, you can’t depict a countess falling in love, a lovable father with a gambling problem, and France invading Russia. Writing takes discipline, and cutting things I want to write about makes me angry and sad. When I sit down in front of my computer, I rage against the constraints of contemporary literature. I complain about the limits of a reader’s attention span. Then I look for the one point that needs to be prioritized and gently save the other good ideas for something else.

Some of your stories have mythic or surreal touches—like Luna, the immortal, or the Orpheus retelling. What draws you to blending realism with magical or mythical elements?

The blending of the surreal and the real has a long history—think of the ghost of Hamlet’s father or the witches in Macbeth. Add to that my Mexican heritage. One of our traits is the belief that magic surrounds us. That sets the stage for interlaying the mythic with the concrete. For example, my scientific training compels me to acknowledge that seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth’s axis as it orbits the sun. But my family also felt there was something amazing about warmth and sunlight growing day by day in the spring, the colors of leaves in the fall, and the hibernation of winter—things that can’t be explained by the angle of the sun in the Northern Hemisphere. The procession of seasons has a mythic quality; so does life itself. So why not write that Ptown’s tides are managed by Luna, a trans woman? Is there any better explanation for the daily rhythm of the tides?

Were there any stories that were particularly difficult to write or that evolved significantly during the editing process?

The hardest story in the book to write was The Return, a story about a man who couldn’t go back to Ptown for decades because his grief for his partner, who died of AIDS, was too strong. As a gay man of a certain age who lost so many friends and loved ones during that horrible time, there are places I still can’t visit without shedding tears. To me, Ptown is also a place of melancholy loss. Just about everyone in my cohort knows this feeling. As this story grew, my feelings of sadness increased, but I kept writing out of respect for the departed. This was one small way to honor those we lost.

Can you talk about the structure of the collection—was there an intentional arc or emotional journey across the stories?

There is a general arc of time across the collection. The first story is about visiting Provincetown; the last is about leaving. Many of the stories in between follow the punctuations of the calendar. I wanted readers to feel how the Provincetown season evolves.

Your work showcases a broad spectrum of queer, Latinx, and other underrepresented identities. How do you balance representation with storytelling without falling into tropes?

I hate being stereotyped, so I try not to stereotype others. As an editor, I find that writers often resort to tropes when they get lazy or when they don’t care enough to respect a character’s individuality. To capture Ptown, you have to write about everyone. I don’t have firsthand experience with what many of my characters have faced, so to overcome that limitation, I had to listen—not just to what they say when rattling off the party line on something, but more importantly to what they gossip about, what they say in private, what slips out when they’re relaxed, or how anxiety shades their words when they’re nervous. I let my characters live their reality. I just chase after them to write it all down.

Provincetown has long been seen as a queer haven. How has that identity evolved over the years, and how did you want to reflect it in these stories?

I first visited Ptown in January 1981, so I’ve been coming here for a very long time. Queer people then and now come to Provincetown to be free to be themselves. That is still a factor today, but people now spend more time thinking about who they are. Provincetown—sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully—demands that people curate themselves. You can be anyone you want without fear of violence or ridicule. But who are you? My stories are about people coming to terms with their place in the world. They want to be lovers, saviors, good citizens, party boys. They want to retire in peace or reinvent themselves as chanteuses. I held up a mirror to the people in this town, and they took it as an opportunity to show off.

As the founder of LatineLit, how does your editorial lens influence your creative writing, or vice versa?

I wrote long before I started to edit, so at first my writer’s perspective colored my editing. Now it’s an iterative process, and they influence each other. As a writer, I edit with sympathy as I try to get into a writer’s head and understand what they’re trying to say. As an editor, I write with an eye toward how a story needs to be crafted—what truly works as opposed to what I would like to work. A writer’s job is to push limits and challenge norms. Editors have to be the adults in the room. They remind writers that shortcuts don’t work and that readers must stay engaged.

Do you feel there’s a responsibility when writing queer or Latinx characters to push back against stereotypes, or is your goal simply to tell truthful, compelling stories?

The prime directive in storytelling is that it must be compelling. What good is a story that is dull and unreadable? Stereotypes are lies; they are libels against people. Because they flatten reality, they are boring and predictable. So yes, it is important to push back against stereotypes, and I do that by telling the truth.

What was your first encounter with Provincetown, and how did it shape your understanding of the place?

My first visit was over a winter weekend with a handsome, intelligent, kind boyfriend who was also a bit of a lunatic. I was a young, naïve dreamer in my last year of grad school trying to figure out what I wanted out of life. But everywhere we went, people overlooked our warts and embraced our quirks. As far as I’m concerned, that welcoming attitude defines Provincetown to this day.

You write about Provincetown’s contradictions—glamorous and gritty, freeing yet sometimes lonely. What do you think keeps people coming back?

I believe it is the town’s contradictions that make it so magnetic. There are countless places with natural beauty—beaches, mountains, deserts—but how many places were founded by Puritans and now profit from hedonism? Provincetown’s contradictions make it both relaxing and energizing. It’s not for everyone, but for those who get into its vibe, there is no other place like it.

The book spans beaches, bars, galleries, and back alleys. Was there a real-life location you were especially excited to fictionalize?

Overwhelmingly, the place I most wanted to write about was Commercial Street. That was the first story in the collection I wrote. The street is a thrill—it’s a place to meet people, to see others, and to be seen. If I could live forever in one moment, it would be standing in the middle of Commercial Street in front of the post office at 3:00 p.m. on a Saturday in July. I had to write about it. I owed it to this wonderful town to memorialize it on paper.

For readers who’ve never been to Ptown, what do you hope Provincetown Stories communicates about the spirit of the town?

One goal I have is to tell the story of the town to people reading this book a hundred years from now, after Provincetown has vanished under rising sea levels. I want them to feel its excitement, craziness, serenity, and natural beauty. I want to convince them that such a place once existed. Provincetown was both contemplative and a blast. It was filled with drama and meditative moments. It was home for some people for a lifetime and a destination for others for a day, a weekend, or a season.

You’ve published nonfiction, academic work, and now fiction. How do you shift between these different writing modes?

What connects all three is the effort to communicate truths. I see them as different vehicles to help readers understand parts of the world they may not be familiar with or to better comprehend places they live in or visit regularly. That makes shifting between modes easier. Several years ago, I wrote a paper on the impact of supermarkets on neighborhood obesity rates. In my mind, that’s not so different from a short story about falling in love with someone who is emotionally unattainable. They both describe situations, and both—even a scientific paper—must be entertaining.

You run Shawmut Peninsula Press, publish fiction in LatineLit, and also write. How do you balance the roles of editor, publisher, and writer?

The hardest part is saying no. To stay sane, I have to say no to some writers after they submit their books or stories. I also have to say no to myself when there’s a story or project I want to pursue but it’s not good enough to justify the time. I hate saying no, but I have to.

How has your academic background in urban planning and public health influenced your fiction writing, especially stories grounded in place and community?

My academic background and my pre-writing career focused on the interactions between people and places. After writing Boston’s South End and The Hub of the Gay Universe: An LGBTQ History of Boston, Provincetown, and Beyond, the next step in communicating the reality of those places was to write stories about them. All of my fiction is grounded in real places where physical and social conditions shape people’s lives.

What advice do you have for writers trying to publish short fiction today, especially writers from marginalized communities?

I tell them not to get discouraged. The reality is that many places will not publish their work no matter how wonderful it is. Magazines, agents, and publishers will see a non-mainstream name or an unconventional format and simply stop reading. But keep writing. Write for yourself. Write the story you want to read. Write as if the fate of the world depends on it, and remember that if you can’t laugh at the world, you’ll go insane.

You’ll be touring widely for this book—New York, San Francisco, Provincetown, and more. What do you most enjoy about meeting readers in person?

I love feeling people’s enthusiasm for literature. I like hearing about what books they love or which passages resonated with them in my own work. When you listen, you can see how people think and what they value. Book readings are a way to spark a dialogue with other book lovers.

Have you had any surprising reactions from early readers of Provincetown Stories that made you see your work differently?

I’ve been surprised by how much Provincetown means to others. Spiritually, they want to hold onto the place tightly—either because they love it deeply or because they’re terrified of what’s happening beyond it. I never thought of my books as carrying that kind of weight, since they celebrate the froth of the town as much as its seriousness.

The book has been described as a love letter to Provincetown. What would you say back if Ptown could write you a letter in return?

I don’t want Ptown to ever end. A thousand years from now, I want a place where people spontaneously make out with strangers on the benches in front of town hall. I want overweight, hairy men to proudly strut down the street in tiny bathing suits and high heels. I want artists, drag queens, and fishermen’s wives to block the supermarket aisles while complaining that the town is going to hell because someone painted their house the wrong color. Change is inevitable, but I hope the town stays eccentric.

You’re working on a novelized update of The Importance of Being Earnest. What inspired that project, and what can readers expect?

While watching a production in London, I was struck by Oscar Wilde’s mastery of social criticism. He made people laugh while exposing hypocrisies and inconsistencies. Today we live in a time when shame has vanished and brazen lies go unchallenged. Readers of this update can expect to laugh uncontrollably while our modern double standards and pretensions are mocked.

Do you see Provincetown as a setting you’ll return to in future books?

Provincetown is my home. It is my muse. If I stopped writing about it, I would feel as though I were abandoning the love of my life. I vow to keep writing about Ptown.

What does success look like for Provincetown Stories—reviews, awards, reader connection, or something more personal?Like all writers, I crave outside validation, but I don’t expect to win the Nobel Prize for this collection. Success comes from people’s reactions. At readings, readers have told me how deeply a character’s fate moved them and how accurately I captured the feeling of a particular time and place. If my words can leap off the page and grab people’s emotions, I’ll consider the book a success.