Rosa Valle: Author of Sonarás Bajo las Aguas.
We have the privilege and pleasure of having today on our blog with Rose valley (Gijon, 1974): writer, journalist, software documentalist, collaborator in various media, blogger and literary therapist.
Author of You will sound under the Waters, a novel of intrigue starring the police inspector Petunia Meadow of the Forest, set on the shores of the Cantabrian Sea, in Gijón, Villaviciosa, and with incursions in Bilbao and Zaragoza.
Actualidad Literatura: I am sure that what draws readers' attention the most is that Rosa Valle writes with the same skill the stories of La Lubina Josefina and El Salmonete Josete, as a brilliant crime novel like You will sound under the waters. You have even dared with an erotic story. Multi-genre writer?
Rose Valley: I also have poetry written, but I have not yet published any verse, beyond showing my paw on social networks and on my blog. Someone who writes communicates…. or should. When you communicate, you adapt the message to the channel, to the receiver, to the context. If you handle the tool with some skill, it doesn't matter if you write a user manual, a news item, a report, a story, a novel, a short story or a proclamation. In the end, you are telling stories for an audience. That is the definition that I liked the most of "Journalism" of the many I learned in the Faculty of Information Sciences and it is the one that I also like the most as a fiction writer. I am a person who tells stories, who writes and tempts me to try everything. I like to tell stories.
AL: You will sound under the waters It begins with the discovery of the corpse of a girl at the Gijón Conservatory. Murder, family intrigues and even there I can read. The black genre is experiencing its sweetest stage since the beginning of the last century almost as a subgenre. Today intrigue novels are no longer considered just an entertaining story, but a vehicle for social and human analysis.
What do you want to tell your readers with your novel and with a murder as a means of attracting their attention?
VR: I subscribe to your heading. As a reader, I like crime novels that have inks of other colors, not just black. The human and social part, as you state, interests me a lot, as much or more than the purely police plot. That's why my black is like that. We note that it is the current and growing trend in the genre. If we look at Dolores Redondo, Lorenzo Silva or Eva García Saénz de Urturi, to name a few Spanish authors, we find this phenomenon. One writes what she likes to read: it is my case. The psychology of the characters, their tastes, their hobbies allow us to dress the police plot with love, values, frustrations, contribute other themes ... And so, in Sonarás bajo las aguas, together with death and investigation, music, Water…
I am interested in the mental and physical brutality of human behavior, the darker side of people and hunting from the other side, police work. Since I was growing up, I have always been attracted to crime series. I came to the crime novel later. However, it is curious, as a journalist I did not like to cover events. It is one thing to make plausible crime fiction and another to delve into the wounds of the real victims and their environment.
AL: You start your adventure in the crime novel by the hand of your protagonist, a police inspector from the Gijón police station, Petunia Prado del Bosque (Tunia), You will sound under the waters. Long live Inspector Tunia? Are we waiting for a new case?
VR: If only. If Zeus gives me the moment, I can't quite find it. Indeed, I have begun to think of another story for Tunia. The scheme remains to be done, but I have the global idea. Already the first readers of the inspector saw in the character the protagonist of a police saga. I imagine that when I created Tunia I was already thinking about a series or, at least, I wanted to leave that door open. That is why I have tried to make Petunia Prado del Bosque a solid and attractive character, to introduce herself to readers in what is her first meeting with them. And next to her, Deputy Inspector Max Muller and the rest of the Homicide group. The victim and his environment are gone forever. This is his first and last meeting with the public, but Tunia and his people stay. I come to say it or it can be interpreted.
AL: Your protagonist is a blogger like you, with her blog Pataleta y Bizarría, a tireless worker, independent and with a gray side that makes her, if possible, more human. What does Rosa give Tunia and Tunia give Rosa?
VR: Tunia is an invention. He's more punchy and attractive than me: he has to have it. Plus she's a cop; she must be a tough chick. Outside of his job, in which he is a hunter, a huntress, as every good policeman is, since he is a woman in the middle of the road. A woman rich in her foreheads, who, due to her age and experience, has already received some blows that adult life tips and, therefore, feels and knows some certainties of what it is to live. Dark blue certainties. Tunia has my tastes, my hobbies, she drinks my beer and feels like me at the computer or we put on our pants the same way. We are two different women, but with an undeniable connection, I admit. Those who know me and have read it find something of me in it. It was not my intention. I imagine that, by putting myself in her shoes, I have left part of mine in her. If you touch the trunk, write a blog and feel that special connection with the water, with the sea and the rivers, it is because I thought that, when I was not describing the plot of the police case, I wanted to address something that I liked: nature, the beach, the motorcycles… It is clear that Tunia could not be attracted to football, for example.
You will sound under the Waters: Intrigue on the shores of the Cantabrian Sea.
AL: Despite the fact that we live in one of the countries with the lowest murder rate in the world, and that on the Cantabrian coast it is even lower than the national average, what does the north have that inspires such great intrigue novels?
VR:Phew, the north! Our north, the Cantabrian. Here an author in black has everything he needs without having to look for muses abroad. Impressive natural and artificial scenery at the same time. The people, the environment, the values and also the flaws… Who doesn't like Asturias? Who is disliked by Asturians? I think I am not sinning as a big woman or as a blind person if I answer that “no one”. My experience is that this region is loved throughout Spain, because it conquers. Asturias only has friends. I could have taken Tunia to another national police station, but the character of the city that I was looking for for her I had it at home. And, if my inspector reaches transregional fame, then, as a humble writer, I will be happy to have contributed to spread my land and its wealth through literature. It is true that it is a tendency among the new authors of the genre to locate the plots in small municipalities, little traveled until now by dark letters. However, I did not want to give up going into a big city as well. I discarded Madrid or Barcelona, which were already so successfully used by the greats of the genre such as Vazquéz Montalbán or Juan Madrid, and I thought of Zaragoza, whose spirit and attributes matched very well with what I needed. That is why the story takes place between Asturias and Zaragoza, with a stop in Bilbao 😉
AL: Literary routes in the settings of your novel, Gijón and surrounding towns. How was the experience of being able to tell your readers live the places that inspired you? To repeat? Will we have another opportunity to accompany you?
VR: Well, a tremendously positive experience, in addition to the fact that it has made me an enormous illusion that the Municipal Foundation of Culture of Gijón and its network of public libraries selected my work to articulate a literary route of Sonarás under the waters in our city. For a new author it is a great emotional reward. The City Council has redefined these literary routes and, in addition to physically carrying them out on an itinerant basis, as coinciding with the Xixón Book Fair, for example, has permanently included them online among the city's cultural resources. That Tunia has a hole there and that readers choose her is an honor. Proud and grateful, without a doubt.
AL: Guest at the Black Week in Gijón, one of the most important events of the genre where you will be sitting with the biggest and most consolidated of the genre. How you feel? What does this recognition mean for Rosa Valle and Tunia Prado del Bosque?
RV: Since I embarked on this adventure, I told myself that, in Black Week, I had to be. I don't have time to tempt other national competitions of the genre, which are starting to be a crowd, but I have this one at home and it is the cradle of the rest. I have stepped on it as a journalist and as a reader. Now I will taste it as an author. Another honor that I add. Very grateful to the Organization for having opened the door to the contest together with other local authors. A couple of years ago I remember going there to meet and listen to Dolores Redondo, of whom I am a fan. As I approached her latest book for her to sign, I commented that I was also writing a crime novel and she reflected it in her dedication. I came out of there with wings. Like a teenager with the signature of the fashionable singer. Freaked out.
AL: On your blog you do Literary Therapy, you talk about everything you want, about literature, about personal reflections on the most varied topics or even about tampons, why not? Tell us a little more. What do you get and what do you get with this literary therapy?
VR: My posts are certainties; flashes, sometimes, and deeper reflections, others. Sometimes they have to do with my hobbies, such as music, literature and travel, and sometimes not. Others are articles that are born from the experience lived in a transcendental key. I learned a long time ago that the world cannot be fixed, but we love to keep fixing it through words, right? There was a time, when I did not write works with the intention of publishing them, when the blog was a real therapy. When nothing works, when you are shipwrecked, write. When you're elated, write. You'll feel better. My Letter Therapy is the Pataleta y Bizarría de Tunia. I've loaned you my tickets. Why would I write new ones for my character if I had already reflected and written before about what I wanted her to tell. I write a lot in my mind and then I don't have time to put it on paper or screen. In my head, the relationships between realities and emotions, between values and roots, between frustrations and longings catch on and develop. They start to walk alone and physical life sometimes lets me put a road for them and sometimes not.
AL: Although we know that you are a true fan of Dolores Redondo, tell us a little more about yourself as a reader: What are the books in your library that you reread every few years and always enjoy again like the first time? In addition to Dolores Redondo, is there an author that you are passionate about, the kind you buy the only ones that are published?
VR: I hope I don't disappoint you, but… I never reread a book! I also don't like to watch a movie twice. I am a reader of authors. When I discover one that I like, I don't let go of it and go back and forth until I run out of it. Examples? We go with the black one, since we are in it. Lorenzo Silva, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Rosa Ribas, Andrea Camilleri, Alicia Jiménez Bartett (for me, the Spanish black lady)… Among newer writers, I will follow in the footsteps of Inés Plana, Ana Lena Rivera. Outside of the crime genre, I really like the contemporary Spanish novel, the theme of the Spanish Civil War and the postwar period and its tentacles extended to today's society, the winners-losers social gap, its brands. The great Delibes and his generation of social novels and today Almudena Grandes, Clara Sánchez… So many and so many. More women than men, by the way. I hardly read foreign letters. From the outside, I try very few authors on the recommendation of a friend prescriber. I am of the generation that has read the classics in school, from the Amadís de Gaula and Don Quixote to the Catilinarias in Latin. If I read, write and feel in letters it is because I have had fabulous teachers of literature, also in the Faculty.
AL: Times of change for women, finally feminism is a matter for the majority and not just for a few small groups of women stigmatized for it. What is your message to society about the role of women and the role we play at this time?
VR: I think we still have a lot to conquer and I am talking about Spain, because in countries without democracy it is evident that being a woman is a disgrace. It annoys me when, on the occasion of certain dates, such as Women's Day, women throw stones against feminism in their speeches on networks. Those women happy with their tiny place in their tiny world of comfort. No sir; no ma'am. We have not yet achieved equality, that is, there are not enough women who raise their voices against machismo, which exists mainly in brutal forms and is daily in more sweetened forms. I do not like radicalism, come from the side or the stick that they come. Neither does radical feminism, therefore, that aggressive and vulgar feminism that tramples on. But every woman is a feminist, she should be, even if she doesn't know it or even deny it. I am convinced that being a man is easier. If I were born again, I would like to be a countryman, I always say. And I mean it. Women have to work and fight more, with life, with burdens, with emotions; against prejudice, against inequality, against time, even.
AL: Despite the traditional image of the introverted writer, locked up and without social exposure, there is a new generation of writers who tweet every day and upload photos to Instagram, for whom social networks are their communication window to the world. How is your relationship with social networks? What weighs more on Rosa Valle, her facet as a communicator or as a writer jealous of her privacy?
VR: I think that, if you have a public activity, you have to be on the networks yes or yes, because on the Internet you have to be yes or yes. This society is digital. Another thing is that as a person, like Rosa or Ana Lena, you decide to do it or not. "If what you are going to say is not more beautiful than silence, do not say it." Well, the same with social networks. There are messages, graphics and writing in them, interesting, personal or not, and others that do not interest anyone, not even super friends. I use Facebook as a personal network and Twitter and Instagram only for my literary activity, but I don't move them enough. I know how to do it, because of my profession, but… I don't get to everything. I can't and I don't have the dimension to have a community manager. A journalist friend threw me a cable, for a while, but now I go back to this one alone and ... buff. To manage your networks well, you have to spend a lot of time clearing, looking for the prescribers, thanking, feeling ... You know it well. Let's say that I am in them in a testimonial way. They are neither great nor bad. It all depends on the use you make of them. Interpersonal communication has won and lost with them.
AL: Literary piracy: A platform for new writers to make themselves known or irreparable damage to literary production?
VR: Hmm. Difficult to answer, because, as consumers of the product that is, we all pirate or have done it at some point in the mass stream. Hacking is always bad, of course. Another thing is to share scraps, open your mouth ...
AL: Paper or digital format?
VR: Forever and ever paper. To touch it, to smell it, to underline it, to care for it, to stain it. In digital everything is colder: or not? Now that the digital format has its utility, no one denies it. Useful, but without charm. And literature, as a hobby and devotion, has a lot of liturgy. Mass, from the bench.
AL: Finally, I ask you to give readers a little more about yourself: What things have happened in your life and what things do you want to happen from now on?
VR: I consider myself a lucky person in my personal and professional life, but I am also a huge nonconformist and that is a drag of steel. You look aside and there is always someone better than you; you look at the other, and there is always someone who is worse. We tend to look at what we lack and it is a mistake that nonconformists make. That does not mean that we do not know how to value what we have. Very important events have happened in my personal life for which I thank God. So in my professional life, I don't complain. I have been able to study what I wanted, live a fantastic university stage at all levels, continue training, later, on other fronts and work in my profession. I would like to continue working as a current affairs journalist, but, unfortunately, journalistic companies are going downhill and without brakes. The working conditions are very precarious and the opportunities for established professionals, very few. I would give for another interview to take the pulse of the journalistic profession today. Nonetheless, I like my current job and am grateful for the opportunity the documentation has given me. I keep telling stories, dealing with information, chewing it and adapting it. In essence, the same trunk as journalism.
Traveling far and wide is another opportunity that I would like the future to hold for me. Those great journeys that we have on our wandering must. This life asks for another, Ana Lena.
Thank you, Rose valley, wish you to continue collecting successes in each challenge you undertake and that You will sound under the waters be the first of a great series of magnificent novels that make us enjoy your readers.