Luiz Valério de Paula Trindade — WRITER

Luiz Valério de Paula Trindade during the launch of his literary essay “Artesão das Palavras

Interview with author

Luiz Valério de Paula Trindade —

1 – Who are you and what do you do?
To be short and sweet, I am Luiz Valério de Paula Trindade, a Brazilian independent author in the early stages of the writing career. I have already published some books as a solo author and taken part in five anthologies so far.

2 – What has driven you to start writing?
I can say that I was very fortunate in my youth firstly because from my 12 to 16 years of age I used to visit regularly the house of one if my aunts and they had a quite large private library by that time and that thrilled me tremendously, in such a way that I used to spend hours and hours there reading and skimming through their numerous books and magazines (I remember that it looked like a sort of enchanted voyage for me). And, secondly, because during Secondary School I was lucky enough to have a gifted literature professor that managed to teach the subject so lightly and skillfully for us that it did not represent a burden at all, but rather an immense pleasure. Therefore, those events did have a great deal of influence on me and later on I started to write my first texts.

Photographic/Literary essay “Bancos/Benches”

3 – What are your favourite authors or those who have influenced you the most?
On what regards my favourite authors it is quite difficult to highlight a small number of them because there are so many amazing writers out there. Nevertheless, I would say that on what concerns the Brazilian authors, I appreciate the work of Lya Luft, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Clarice Lispector and Mário Quintana for example. Amongst the international authors I would include Milan Kundera, Elisabeth Bishop, Charles Dickens, Richard Bach, Agatha Christie and Vladimir Mayakovsky. All those authors have been part of my readings during my youth and they have left lasting good impressions on me. In my case I do not consider that a single author has been the most definitive influence to my work. Instead, I usually learn a little bit from each one of them and try to inspire myself from their unique and individual styles.

Book of poetry “Antologia Brasilidades Vol. 9 Edição Especia”

4 – What sorts of books do you write?
What I like most to write are literary essays and poetry (on this order of preference) and up to the present moment I have published two literary essays in Portuguese (“Artesão das Palavras” and “Ao seu redor”) and one poetry book (“Tempos de Descobertas”). Besides those three works in Portuguese I have also published a bilingual photographic-literary essay called “Bancos | Benches”. If you allow me to say, that is quite an unique and original piece of work because it encompasses pictures taken by myself, over a period of six years, of public benches of eight cities around the world (Boston, Edinburgh, Hastings, Lisbon, London, São Paulo, Southampton and Vancouver) combined with essays that contribute to guide the senses of the readers for this urban object that, at first sight, usually people do not pay too much attention to.

5 – What is your earliest memory of wanting to be a writer?
As I have mentioned before, the convergence of two peculiar facts has contributed to influence me to start writing. However, over time even though I kept on writing from time to time rather than on a full time basis, since I had other duties, I did not had the inner confidence to show my work to many people. I think that there was a sort of fear that my writings would not please anyone and consequently I would be discouraged to carry on. Therefore, only over the course of the last five years or so that I have actually started to publish my texts. I started to publish them in my blog and also sharing them with a wider group of friends. As the feedbacks were becoming increasingly positive my confidence grown considerably and I decided then to go for a self-published book.

Book of poetry “Cumplicidade de Movimentos”

6 – How do you work and approach your subject?
Unfortunately, I am not presently a full time writer and, as a consequence of that, my approach to writing must be as flexible as possible. Therefore, what I usually do is to keep a small paper notebook with me all the time in such a way that whenever an idea or inspiration pops up in my mind I can write it down and do not waste any creative moment. If the circumstances allow me I write most of the essay at once, but if it is not possible I just make a sketch with the main points and return to it later.

7 – What are the responses you have had to your work?
I know that it may sound a little bit romantic (maybe many authors are like that, I do not know) but I believe that one of the greatest rewards an author can receive is having people actually reading his/her work and talking about it. I have been fortunate that some people go to my blog and post comments not only about my books but also about the texts that I upload there from time to time, and those feedbacks are very important to me because they push me forward to keep on this track. Amongst the responses I have had I would like to highlight one made by a female reader who said that one particular essay that I had published in one of my books (“Artesão das Palavras”) seemed that it had been written specifically for her. In my point of view, such kind of spontaneous feedback it is absolutely priceless, and on top of that adds purpose to the task of writing.

Poetry book – “Tempos de Descobertas”

8 – What do you like most about your work?
One of the aspects that thrills me most about writing is the possibility to craft the texts with words carefully selected to convey my ideas. It looks like a thoughtful, detailed and delicate artisan work where we insert one word, shift it for another one, pick up new ones and so forth until we realise that the full text it is accurate enough and it is capable to convey the exact meaning or the right emotion and sensation we want to address to the readers. I find it absolutely fascinating and in the end the text (and the book itself) it is not merely a collection of words lined up one after another, but rather a gift from us to the readers.

Book of poetry “Dia Nacional da Poesia”

9 – What advice would you give to other early career writers?
Well, that is a little bit difficult to say since I am also going this same pathway myself. But if I can say something from my own experience so far, I would highlight what I consider to be the three main aspects:

• 1) Read critically the authors that you admire most, however not with the objective to spot their possible flaws, but mainly with the aim to identify what make them unique for you and what characteristics you can learn from them, and eventually incorporate in your own style in order to turn your own work unique as well.

• 2) Try to attend as many courses, trainings, seminars and workshops as possible because you not only sharpen your knowledge and abilities but you also get to know other authors like yourself, exchange rich ideas with them and establish fruitful networks and friendships.

• 3) Make use of every single opportunity you come across, such as literary contests, book fairs, lectures and so on in order to expose your work to a wider audience because people need to know that you exist as an author and that you have something to say.

Literary essays – “Artesão das Palavras”

10 – Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
Well, I would love to have already written a successful novel that would be turned into a blockbuster movie. No, no, that is not true. I am just fooling around a little bit. As a matter of fact, what I do expect for certain it is to enhance my knowledge of the editorial market (both Brazilian and international alike), sharpen my writing abilities because I am fully aware that I still have a lot to learn and be able to write books that pleases people and leaves something good and positive for them after reading. I do believe that I have something to share with people through my books and therefore, in 5 to 10 years time I definitely see myself in a better stage than nowadays.

Luiz Valério de Paula Trindade

Links —

Website: http://luizvaleriowriter.weebly.com
Clube de Autores: http://clubedeautores.com.br/authors/140299
Apple iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/author/luiz-valerio-paula-trindade/id946586586?mt=11
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/author?id=Luiz+Valério+De+Paula+Trindade
Bubok Portugal: http://www.bubok.pt/autores/luizvalerio