Stories - Heartlines

"I think I get too stuck in the original shape of things, and then I get distracted with a new idea and forget that you need to play around with the work a bit. And that it’s fun to just flip an idea completely on its head, sometimes the core of the it might just fall out and expose itself if you turn it upside down/chop it up/write it as a big chunky prose poem."

"I think I’ve been trying to blend in for too long and sometimes I forget where I come from. In all honesty, I never considered myself to be 100% Brazilian as my family comes from all parts of the world, we have Spanish, Hungarian, Austrian, Italian, and Jewish heritage, so sometimes it’s hard for me to write about Brazil and Brazil only."

"I truly thought the idea of growing up in the regions had some kind of special significance to everyone on earth when, naturally, nobody cared about or even knew the place I had come from. Still, my hometown endures, like anyone's."

"The one thing my mum said to me was to put something out there that is you, that is original. So, I started writing... if I want to do my own thing or need help with my writing, I try to do something that is original to people. Whatever is obsessively in my mind, I write about it."

"The truth is, I write because I must. There is this need inside me. I get this energy that needs to be released, normally triggered by a memory, a sound or an external input. When I don’t act on it for long periods, I get a little overwhelmed."

"I truly don’t know what it was about the space that allowed me to rev into gear, but maybe it was the fact that one day a week I felt like it was my job to be a storyteller. It felt like my place in the community was to tell stories. It felt like I had a home."

"What I do know is that writing brings me peace and sharing my writing with others gives me joy. I hope it gives people who read it something too. Writing is my way of processing the world, but it also feels essential to my way of being in the world, like there is no other way for me to be here and fully alive. So, I guess I’ll keep writing till I get chucked off the boat someday."

"I would consider myself a wordsmith: I like observing and taking notes, I have books on English phrases, words and their meaning sitting on my desk, my luggage, and my drawer. Sometimes I will go back and read over them and find how this word and that word pieced together to make something beautiful."

"I think this place [Centre for Stories] is really needed. In other spaces I always have a guard up. But here I never feel like that. I really found what I wanted to talk about, and I am able to talk about my experiences and feel heard."