Better Know An Author – Matheus Andrade
Our weekly spotlight series on authors from around the world. This week we sat down with Matheus Andrade!
Please give a brief introduction, including your name and where you are based
My name is Matheus Andrade de Moraes, but you can call me Theus. I am a writer, social work student and researcher in the area of gender and sexuality.
I live in Aracaju, Brazil. I am passionate about the arts, especially literature, cinema, theater and a fan of the singer Aurora. Passionate about life and freedom.
What book or books have you published or are working on at the moment?
So far, I don’t have published books, I’m working on my first project. This book will have 10 unpublished tales; each of them will rely on a specific feeling (such as fear, anger, and memory).
The fictions of these stories start from moments of my life together with other people and from photographs of my city that I have been collecting. The clipping and union of these parts receive fuel from my entire body context, from all my experience.
What drives you to write?
There is a very clear movement about social and personal daily life, I would say that an infinite lives in this short space between what is mine and ours. Knowing how to do our daily work is as important as knowing how to talk to our own monsters. Some people cannot dialogue with themselves and others only have this option in life because they have been sufficiently raped.
It is these loopholes that induce my writing, personal cracks that are swallowed by our social obligations and in this way, we give up what causes our blood to pulse. Therefore, I see that movement as something to be observed always from a balance, because that is where it lives what leads me to write, where life lives.
Where can folks find you online and on social media?
The page of my tales: https://www.recantodasletras.com.br/autor_textos.php?id=155502&lista=ultimas
My Instagram: @closetheus
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064390478135
On Instagram I’m posting the photos I mentioned earlier. Next to them comes phrases from my short stories and moments I spent in 2021.
To contact you, just send a message to Instagram or Facebook. Whenever I have availability, I will respond.
What is one piece of advice you would give to another author out there who might be struggling?
I’ve spent the last 5 years in a lapse of space with ideas in my head that have never been to writing. During this time I was occupied by the capitalist mode and I was too busy with undergraduate reading, with research, with work.
This made me apathetic to my inner child. I also wanted to be the most important friend of all around me, but this effort cost me a lot, this issue was erasing who I was to favor others around me.
By spending most of the pandemic indoors, I was able to see how much I had lost myself in this process of tireless work and dealing with other people’s dreams and difficulties. With this temporal loss, I only had one way out, to go back to my origins and love who I am. For that, I needed to observe who was by my side doing real things for me and a lot of therapy.
I believe that this is a personal process, but I can say that it is not running away from your anxiety or monsters that your writing will take off, but rather from a constant self-reflection. Your power lies precisely in facing your problems. Keep calm and give yourself time to think. Don’t allow yourself to be swallowed up by momentary distractions.
What are some of your five-year goals with writing?
I hope to release my first book next spring in Brazil, as I follow and celebrate the seasons of the year. It will be a great time to plant this seed to share with others.
Later, I want to work on my book that will come from a master’s research that will involve the LGBTQIA+ population and public policies. I also want to release my first novel, which will address my most intimate moment during the 5 years, both of writing and how it affected me.
Who knows I can provoke some product to release my stories in miniseries format or a movie with different stories? I would love to have this opportunity; I think the script experience could be great.
Final Thoughts?
First, I would say thank Daniel immensely and congratulate his dedication to To Tony Productions, you can count on my partnership for teamwork and teaching.
Second, I want to remind people who have come this far in this reading that they are not alone. Remember that our bodies are immersed in our stories and traumas. Never feel guilty for any negative feelings, after all society is based on a political context which is patriarchal, racist and LGBT-phobic and this also affects our way of acting, keep open to dialogue with different people.
Take all these issues into consideration and your writing will be increasingly rich in details and power. As long as you never stop dreaming and working to achieve, there are people who love you and trust your potential, we are here to help.
A warm hug from Theus.
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