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From my economics perspective, as a child,
I saw my grandmother and neighbouring farmers underselling their products at the local Village farmer’s market,
for a cents worth of hard labour. That’s when it all made sense to me and I wrote (The Rich & the
Poor) about its unfairness. In short: I never saw my composition or my grade, my grandmother got interrogated
by the secrete-state-police (PID) and I got a good spanking. What a way to start a career as a writer?
Later in high school I wrote poetry and comedy for the local theatre company. My twenties
were all about work and raising a family, I only got to sing some of my poems to my son Carlos-Philip at
bedtime.
In my early thirties I suffered a traumatising automobile accident. Later in the same year my
grandmother, who raised me until I was eleven, passed away. And, I got separated from my children who left to Portugal
with their mother. Carlos-Philip was seven years old, and Daniel-José was only six months...
To cope with all of this, I decided to start writing a novel about personal experiences
and my hometown, to re-evaluate my sense of home. That's when I produced The Niche of São
Tiago and it is dedicated to my grandmother and my children.
With
the separation from my children and in search for meanings in life I wrote Miner's
Peaches & Tears. My allegorical and realism style, with some elements of fantasy, brings about a short novel,
that takes place in Rouyn-Noranda, that is compelling and spiritual. I have been criticised for writing about small
towns and rural life values, when most literature is directed at the urban-craze.
You can rest assured that the reading of such literature can induce a get-away
from urban stress and give you a relaxing vacation from the violence-sex-action
thrill you get bombarded everyday in an urban setting.
After having written two wonderful stories and acquiring a style
that I was comfortable with, I decided to continue. I wrote a story that is true and that always intrigued
me. In Violetta di Parma I explore the theme of family in the European catholic context as second-generation emigrants living in North
America. Great cultural richness from the Italian Canadian community can be better understood as I make the reader
feel like an insider with Giusseppe’s philosophy for cooking. It wraps up nicely with a strong touch of family
morals and values. Here too, I was criticised for believing that a women in a man’s life should not be the punch of
the story, but seriously, aren’t we men lucky to have such wonderful beings next to us? When I explore the a sense of
happiness in my stories, a woman always comes to mind... let it be a grandmother, a mother, a daughter, a sister, our
life partner, or a lover. If you notice the termination of all these words, they all end with ER, and surely it does
not mean Emergency Room. I prefer to think of it as meaning Eternal Rebirth.
To
get away from stress and to find peace and time to write I spent some time in Abitibi in the beautiful town of Rouyn-Noranda.
Missing my children, that now live in Portugal, I wrote something for children and to help protect the environment. By
creating Dragon Abitibi I have entered into my first work done in French and an obvious attempt at learning the language. This gave my
oldest son Carlos-Philip motivation to write and he created The Scary Masks. A Halloween story for children between eight and twelve, written by an eleven year old, that I highly recommend
to your children before they go out on Halloween night.
I was intrigued by the history Quebec City from a visit I
did many years ago. In 2003 I decided to go there again just so I could learn more about the city's upcoming 400 year
celebration and write at the same time. Golf on the Plains of Abraham offers
a great perspective on how to look at Canadian Québec culture with a different perception –a story of intra-muros
(how some of us are in-between two cultures or limbo) and of hope.
I have also selected a bunch of my favourite poems and created the book of poems
Oranges and Tangerines. This is a life long project, and although not available on the market, since
it will always be incomplete till I die, you can always read some of my poetry within my novels, and on the internet.
My
passion for Dancing, a wonderful way to exercise and heal (physically and mentally) has led me to create a method to learn
Salsa. Try it at home with your partner and you will see how much fun you can have with Method 211 for Salsa Fans.
What’s in the works?
I
guess now it is the time to tell you about what in being written and what you can expect in the future. I look at it as what’s
in the bottom drawer, with sketches made up, characters built, synopsis drafted, research plan and material, but that has
not been touched in a wile due to my health, fatherly responsibilities etc.
For
children:
1-
Continuation of the Dragon Abitibi series. Here the Canadian environmental dragon will travel and address other dilemmas within
pollution. Hope you will follow along.
2-
A new series titled Little Himalaya. This, staying on the same beliefs of protecting our planet as our number one priori,
Manuel Antonio Gomes Himalaya, father of solar science and priest with a great philosophy for sustainable ecology and life,
and winner of the Grand Prix, in Saint Louis world fair in 1904 with his solar furnace, will become alive to motivate children
towards a new form of living that is in harmony with our surroundings. Above all it will teach them, in a fun way, an environmental vocabulary.
What you say you think it... eventually. And what you think you act on it... eventually and hopefully.
For adults:
1- Stony Monday is a compelling
story of present dilemmas in universities in Canada (and all over developed nations), where in a society with less children,
post an era of high demand of seats in faculties, these modern institutions of educations look for students all over the world.
One of those students, from Romania, ended up in Ottawa at the end of the twentieth century and would do almost anything to
stay in Canada after completing studies. Living in a farm, and working on By-Ward Market selling vegetables, the student learns
about Stony Monday, just one of Canada’s mini interclass revolutions still ongoing. Will this revisit to the past help
understand where we are and where we should go in the future?
2- Terracotta Warriors will be
my biggest challenge since it will involve allot of research on the Chinese ways and beliefs, to best explain why we should
not mess with burial grounds... a fiction and action story that brings the warriors back from the dead, back to this world.
Will their leader come back as well? What is their mission?
3- Grandchild of a Peasant, a
story of the Portuguese Revolutions of Carnations social family context, is something I believe should also be written in
the perspective of a child. It is up to us, those writers who were children back in 1974, to take on this responsibility and
do produce something. I hope I can be the one to take on that challenge...
Hope you will follow
along and hope my writings will make a different in our lives...
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