[english mini version]

alchemies

I was writing a book about literary creation from 2000 to early 2006, titled Álbum de alquimias / Album of alchemies. As an album, it contains photos and many miscellaneous information, but essentially some articles and essays of my own about various authors and the way they write their works: novelists, poets, script writers, essayists and playwrights. I interviewed also nearly two hundred of writers as well, some of them during some interviews in person, and I sent a brief but intense questionnaire to the rest. Their names are listed here, linked to their official websites (the interviews aren't avalaible for the moment): escritores y momentos.

I started this project because I wanted to know through a lot of different writers what kind of writer I was. I needed to learn about literature and about myself so I started to send letters and to note down my thoughts. My book was growing up this way.

Firstly I focused in Spanish and Latin American writers, but Literature is universal, I think, so when in 2002 I met a poet and songwriter from the United States I decided to include her in my project, then I thought I could contact new and interesting writers from other languages and countries to add more value to my book although I'’m afraid most of those writers weren’'t much known in Spain unfortunately. However, I thought they could fit in the essence of my project because I was looking for authors with many things to say, not only because of their different cultural or generational backgrounds but because of their roots in different sides of creation and art itself, literature, cinema, new technologies and even in opposite corners of all those sides…

I let the book have a rest while I was working in another project from October 2005 to November 2008, my short film titled Horror vacui (56). But when I finished my film I wanted to reanimate Album of alchemies again, so I started to seek the opinions from new writers to complete the study. I hadn'’t anything signed up with any publishing house yet, but there were three publishers very interested on my idea and even one of them suggested me to build various separated but connected books in order to make its publication easier, instead one book as was my original intention. So I rethought the project.

I don'’t know if my efforts will be finally published but I sincerely believe in the true worth of this project and I hope that the resultant book/books will come to life as I want. The first version could be published in Spanish in Spain and distributed in Spain and Latin America because of the common language of these territories, but I know that many readers all around the world would find within the interviews and my articles a little bit of reflection, passion, deep thoughts, feelings and a guide to how writers develop or sometimes even destroy their own works, so I think that the translations into other languages are a solid possibility.