Featured Interview With Ana Claudia Antunes
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in Santos, Brazil. I spent my childhood in the Beach/Harbor City until I was three. It was there where I started my first drafts with a book from the kinder garden at a German school filled with drawings and scratches from self-portrays as a ballerina to birds, letters and numbers turning into figures (such as when I drew the number four with one leg crossing the other, pure child imagination). That book was where the teachers kept their notes and also where I had recorded the days I missed class, usually due to having infection in my ear, throat and eyes due to too much swimming (yes, I was already a big swimmer at the YMCA when I was still four years old). And the teachers had agreed that one more year would do me a favor, because I was too introverted, Please, with all that stuff going on in my mind who would be involved into introspection? It was then too when I wrote and composed, since the day that I created a prelude, playing some notes (which I still have recorded in my brain) on a small piano toy that my uncle gave to me at the age of three. From there we wento to a small countryside place, living a quiet life for a couple of years, when my family definitely decided to move to the big city of Sao Paulo. It was when I finally feel passion for the first time and I fell in love with the Arts as I first put my two feet at the theatre, playing the flute to a big audience at Mackenzie Institute. And I was only seven years old. And I loved it! To feel the audience rejoicing good music… And I also sang and it felt so great that a year later I was to become part of my School Choir with the regency of the maestro eleazar de Carvalho, illustrious figure from the Brazlian classical music. At the same there at the American School where I also had the pleasure to spread my rhymes and poetry, and stories and drawings into my friends who collected memories and souvenirs in their diaries. When I reached High School I had my writings published by the same school in Sao Paulo, And that´s where I live now. I have a dog named Preta and a cat named Phoebe. I used to have a turtle but after they took her to a lake, she swam away, very freely. Once they spotted her and she was so much bigger now, for she used to eat the fishes from the aquarium and now she has a hell lot more of fishes in the sea, I mean, pond. And let me tell you, she´s living the life that she deserves and is so much better now!
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I started reading and writing before I was even at school, because I have always been a very curious child and I would pick a book from my mother who was then still studying at school. She had two workbooks which were among my favorites: one was about the musical instruments, with letters and drawings showing the variety of materials and sounds each one had. The other was a book in French with exercises. And I swear you I could read some of the letters. So I might have learned to read French even before my own mother tongue. Funny stuff. I mean, Fanny. That´s my mother´s name; and then I would go along with the drawings and the letters, fascinating, even though I could not grasp the word I had the feeling of what it would mean. But it was not until I had my own first workbook that I realized I was learning something. I was already at school and I had homework to do. So I would go to the library. As I was by myself I would take any book I wanted. And I would be fascinated by the different sizes and stories each one had. So much so that I started to create my own books. And when I was eleven I designed my own comic book and made a compilation of stories of my own, forming a Series, going from drawing and manufacturing the cover with a hardcover to the stitching of pages together. And I still have kept it even after so many years…
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Oh so many, but I can easily name by heart, literally, Charles Dickens, especially with his David Copperfield, Agatha Christie and all of her books were sensational for a young reader going through the adventures of middle school, Arthur Conan Doyle, Andre Gide, Richard Bach (One), Paulo Coelho and his Diary of a Magus, so my favorite genre, if we dind´t have guessed yet, it´s Mystery, Thriller and some adventure with mystical themes.
I love biographys and autobiographys as well. “Letters to Theo” by Van Gogh, which I read fifteen years ago, not only inspired me to write, but to live, love, laugh about the smalllest things.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I am working on the translation of my Mystery/Suspense hybrid fiction/nonfiction which I originally wrote in English to Portuguese. I am also working in a new book for children in my How-to Series. So keep an eye for it because there is more creative stuff coming up. My latest book will be the one I´m working now in Portuguese, translated from English, “The Mysterious Murder of Marilyn Monroe” which is already available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I decided to write this book more than three years ago when I heard about the way Miss Marilyn Monroe died and I thought to myself, “Well, that´s fishy!” Also it was the year 2011 and the next year it will turn out to be fifty years without her. And I kind of channelled her thoughts and then… well, you might as well read it, for it´s already done!
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