Heyoo,
I recently did an interview with Masticadores that you can read here.
Big thank you to Masticadores and Manuela Timofte for their kindness and interest.
Excerpt:
M. Since when do you write? What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?
When I was five, I received a bright red hardcover diary with a gold lock on the front accompanied by two miniature keys. At the same time, I was experiencing recurring nightmares about four letters. Every night they’d stand still, towering over me. Their presence and the style of font frightened me so badly I would experience sleep paralysis or sometimes feel myself being pulled toward the letters like a magnet. Luckily, this is where my diary helped calm me (I was a weird kid).
Inside, I sketched the same things: numbers, trees, sky, sun, a home, and the alphabet, including the four letters that visited every night to fight the nightmare. The lock made what I wrote feel like secrets. A private, peaceful playground no one could enter and gave me confidence. I even wrote rough drafts of entries on scratch paper so they would look neater when I wrote in my diary. Quickly, an obsession with letters developed. They intrigued me with their varying looks and each one had a unique personality whom I considered friends. E was intelligent and quiet, K was my boyfriend because we shared the same initial, S was sneaky, but I would imagine him as my knight against the four letters. From early on, writing became a fun and calming activity to indulge in.
At eight, I received a typewriter instead of a computer since those were super pricey. Regardless, the love was instant. The powerful sound the keys produced only to see it appear on the paper was magic. Then one afternoon, I started imagining moments, scenes. Dialogue came next, sentences formed. Across the paper they looked like paths. Paths I had characters walk. Characters I made walk. It felt powerful, that zoned in creative control, getaways with a beginning, middle and end. Shortly after, my recurring four-letter nightmares ended. The last one I had, I remember realizing inside the dream that I was asleep in real life and just needed to wake myself up. Once I did, the letters faded. There was nothing to fear anymore. I got the idea after watching A Nightmare on Elm Street. Can you believe Freddy Krueger helped an eight-year-old girl’s nightmares end?
It was official. I fell in love with writing and gained twenty-six soulmates who would take me anywhere…
Read the entire interview here.
Featured Image: Team GHB
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