By Dolores Luna Yelizarov
On this occasion we are joyous because our Learning and Neurodevelopment
Research Center is honored to meet a Spanish writer who has filled with emotion
not only her books but so many readers, and at this time she is literally
taking to Latin America to a very emotional journey. She writes novels that are
filled with the human essence. Her name is Mayte Esteban and she has given us
not only time, but a bit of herself, so we invite you to know her a little bit of
it.
Mayte tell us: since when you become a writer and how did you get
inspiration?
I started to write novels when I was only 10 years old, a complete daring!,
but it is true that from such a young age I felt a need to put in writing the
stories that I imagined. At the beginning, obviously everything came out was
mere learning, but writing has always been present in my life and stayed with
me now that I am an adult.
What did push you to take a path of letters?
I grew up in a library! In my village it was openened a Cultural Center and
library’s windows were orientaded
directly to my house. I started visist it
and I discovered in books wonderful worlds that immerse me every evening, when
I returned from school. That is how I started to make contact with great
authors, and not only through its printed novels, sicne this library always had
visits of writers who were very inspiring. As I said, I had begun to write
since many years ago but I did not share it with anyone, I felt much modesty. My
family knew my wirting passion, but they don't read anything I wrote those
years because it did not allow it.
The first time I allowed to read something I wrote was as a birthday present to my great
aunt. She was 90 years old and I thought that she has already received all kind of all
possible gifts, so I grabed a tape
recorder and ask her to tell me her life. In the next hour she told me just a
piece, but with that material I wrote, in one night, a story about it. I
printed it with a book format, I
prepared it and I gave it to her as birthday present.
No doubt it is an incredible gift!
Honest, that little story was hand
by hand, surprising me with all the criticism, and it was a germ of what would later become La arena del reloj. My father told me that we had to do something when he would decide retire from work, but it might
not be as we planned it, because life gave us a shove: My father got sick with
cancer and that accelerated the writing of that book. Actually I wanted any
grief because we knew that that story had an end writen. All this happened
between 2005 and 2006.
Practically life put you
writing as gift...
Yes, however, it was not until 2008, when I was 38 years, when I decided to take the next
step of presenting a story in a competition. It was a big surprise for me when
I found out that my story had won a prize and that made me to continue losing
fear. What I had written up to that moment I had shared it only with my family so I thought that all their enthusiastic
reviews had much to do with the love that they give me. So that award was, first and foremost, lowering the
level of that suspicion and motivation that emerged after winning another
contest, which had matched a small prize, pushed me to try with the
auto-edition.
In a North American site called Lulu, I layout la arena del reloj and I made an order from four books, which began to move from
person to person and I had to request more, because the publicity ran from mouth
to ear. I really wanted to give a copy to the library where I grew up, so I
took it. After read it, librarian asked me to be part of a talk about auto-edition
publishing. She sensed that it was a phenomenon that would give much to talk
about. As indeed I had not done a publishing rule, but rather to demand, I
decided to document well. How? Since starting things from the beginning.
What happened after seeing your book, not only on paper,
but in the hands of readers?
I searched one of the novels that I wrote when I was very young, in fact
the only one that I had finished
(because when I was young, I felt tired, and let my novels witten in a half). I
read it, changed it a bit because life had also changed since I wrote it, and I
did all the legal paperwork with it. That
was Boy for rent, that is a juvenile novel that,
despite what the title may suggest is very light; a simple fun. I gave the talk
and then shared those two novels free online. I didn't expect anything happen,
but one day I found that someone had writen me a review in a blog from Mexico about
this novel. A few days after, I found
another to the sand of the clock. My blog started to receive visits and
followers; I realized that, even if it was all a hobby for me, people
considered my stories as novels, and me as a writer.
It was surprising and disconcerting.
No doubt, your
talent was discovered!
In 2011 Amazon arrived in Spain and some authors dared to raise his books.
I, who did time analyzing this phenomenon from Detrás del Cristal, I thought perhaps it
was a good opportunity to put me to the test of truth and in March 2012 published El medallón de la magia. Then I thought that all novels should be on the same platform and that
summer I put them all together. I wasn't expecting all the public response.
All, without exception, have been number one in their categories on more than
one occasion.
In 2013, in February, Detrás del cristal, my fourth novel, marked a before and an after for me as a writer. Fifteen
days after uploading the file, not only was among the ten most sold in Spain
but in my desk editorial offers that I had to assess accumulated. I decided by
Ediciones B, and since July of that year was part of its catalogue of authors.
The novel has been in all the libraries of Spain and recently started their way
to Latin America. On Amazon I came to occupy the number 2, something that
seemed to be an impossible dream.
A dream behind a lot of work...
As you see, little by little, step by step and without following the path
that was supposed to be marked, ended up arriving at the place that had me
booked destination. Now I have already published the fifth novel, Brianda, which is the next
of the magic Medallion.
Did you how to recognize that you could take letters as your
flag?
Writing was born with me. As I have explained, it come where I am was not a
plan drawn up beforehand, but that I was following my own steps. It is true
that in this process there has been consistency, which I have not given up at
any time. I have allow it to lead me, but at the same time I have been putting
everything on my part to learn from everything that was happening to me.
There are authors who like to describe places, or people,
but you describe emotions, how come did you decide to allow to readers to feel
those emotions and how did you decided to share emotions?
I do not know. When I start a story I never use typical resources like telling
readers how physically is a character, but broadly speaking. I let my
characters to speak and, through their words, each reader will be composing an
idea of how they are. I think that it happens just as in life. When you know
someone, the first thing you see is obviously a physical side, but until you do
not share a conversation you don't have the idea of how that person is. Perhaps
that is the reason why I focus more on the emotions that each character lives.
I try to put me in their place, I think what would (or sometimes what would not
do) and I narrated it from that point of view.
In my stories, the dialogue has much weight because
readers can make decisions about each character. You can understand why he or
she behaves in this or that way without
being conditioned by me. That causes that sometimes they surprise me so much with interpretations that readers make to each one
of my characters.
What all my stories have in common
is that I tend to use quite shocking history triggers. Detrás del cristal, for
example the behavior of the protagonist not only is atypical, but it assumes
that the reader is positioned against it (especially if the reader is a mother)
because what it does is not good, it is complete madness. I was looking for
this, when someone is closer to history he thought what would do. It is a
desperate situation that conceals very serious problems that are the order of
the day. If you advance reading, that feeling that what he has done is very bad
is diluted because you're understanding it, even if you think that you never
therapist as she did. Having chosen a tone of comedy for something so serious
was something that I valued very much. Little by little, the story loses
lightness and wins in depth, and what looked like a sweet candy just having a
bitter taste because it puts you in the position to consider what would have
made you. And you discover that it is not as easy to make decisions when you're
desperate.
I think that emotions help us to learn as much as reasoning.
I would at this time change the idea a little bit. Is
said to have the most people don't read, that the publishing industry is
detrimental, with this in perspective, why you decide not only to write, but to
publish?
Because I lost nothing by trying it. Not intended to get out of my circle
and helped me to give a decent format to the book which had served as trigger
of everything, that was the sand of the watch, a book that is the most special
thing I have for his subject. Later, the arrival of Amazon and a phrase that I
myself had written behind the glass convinced me that I could: "is allowed
to make mistakes. The coward is not try." And I tried it. Today I can say
proudly that I have readers from many corners of the planet who feel well to
read my stories. That is more than rewarding.
How do you think it would be the world without letters or
words?
We are words. We distinguish ourselves from other animals for many things,
but certainly what made a difference was precisely that we develop mechanisms
to communicate. With words we were transmitting knowledge, emotions, values,
and of them I am sure that it depended to a large extent our survival as a
species. Words have the power to change the world and better that strength.
If you could design a school and have all the resources
to make that space exactly what you believe to be a school, would what you put
in it?
I think that physical space is the first thing you would change. These
tables looking to a blackboard are not good. I was lucky at the University for
the last two years in a small group that we were only ten students, and to be
the specialty of geography and need space to extend maps, place the tables
forming a wider. We sat around and no one, not even the Professor, occupied a
predominant place. It was a space for dialog and when the class ended, that it
had become very short, you felt that you had learned a lot. They were not
classes listen without more, but sharing impressions.
I had a teacher who told us one day that store data that can be found
didn't make sense. In a specialty like mine. why would you waste your time
remembering, for example, how many people is in Chicago if tomorrow the
number will be no longer the same? That
is something that you can look at a particular time. But know why populations
grow or decrease, that is a more interesting thing. In that sense I would focus
on analyzing what causes changes in the processes rather than on the
quantifiable.
It should be a place with access to books and new technologies and where
will speak much and listen to the student. I think that there are teachers who
often forget to listen to students and I think when you recognize them as learners they can understand
much more.
