L. Vocem

What was your favorite book as a child?

I was more of a visual person, so the first book I read that I enjoyed, not because I had to read it for school, but out of pure pleasure, was The Little Prince. Yet, I spent most of my time reading Mafalda and the work of Argentinean humorist Quino. His work was not only funny, but very political, polemical and edgy. To this day you can find clips of his work posted as memes in Facebook or Instagram. 

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

Most of the books I read in school, I found them to be absolutely boring. But then I came across two stories that absolutely changed me: Metamorphosis by Frans Kafka and As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. After that, I was doomed. I began to consume like an addict the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver.  

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

I went to the middle of the Venezuelan jungle in the frontier with Colombia in a military helicopter with my dad to study a tribe notorious for killing all outsiders. Western men called them Motilones (which means to mutilate), they called themselves Bari. My dad was the first Westerner to extract blood from them without getting killed. These were the days long before understanding Mitochondrial DNA, or genes, and my dad with students from the University of Zulia wanted to study their Chromosomes and determine where they came from.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing?

When I work, I prefer silence. Music distracts me and makes me think about the music, but in silence I am forced to entertain myself with my own thoughts. I do the same when driving, hiking or riding my bike. No news, no music. Just my thoughts. This is so important because you can spend an hour with a particular character trying to understand why they are so angry, or happy, or ignorant, or deviant.