Photography: Félix G. Modroño, Twitter profile.
Felix G. Modrono, Biscayan living in Santander, has already eight novelss published and now presents witches sun In this interview tells us about her and more stories. I am very grateful for her time and kindness in attending to me.
Felix G. Modrono. Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your latest novel is witch sun. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
FÉLIX MODROÑO: I knew first-hand cases of school bullying through networks, mainly. And I decided to write this novel as complaint. I have to thank the professionals in the field of education and the police of Cantabria who have helped me to devise this plot.
- AL: Can you remember any of your first readings? And the first story you wrote?
FM: I started like everyone else back then. The comics, the adventures of Captain Thunder… Then came the novels of Verne y Salgari in comic format. The first books without drawings that I remember are those of The Hollisters.
As for writing, I guess the essays at school. I remember that I participated in the Coca-Cola contest but I didn't get past the provincial phase and that the Spanish championship was won by a classmate from my school. The prize was a trip to Chile, which in those days was like going to Mars. And I don't deny my disappointment.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
FM: Gabriel García Márquez, undoubtedly. His elegance at the time of writing continues to be a model to follow.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
FM: I would have liked to create William of Baskerville and Sherlock Holmes. That's why my doctor Zúñiga has something of both. And as for knowing Sigrid, who was my first love. Of course she couldn't have done anything because she loved Captain Thunder.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
FM: The hazelnuts and Coca-Cola. They are not only my energy but my resource for breaks. When I finish a novel, my scale tells me off.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
FM: I write anywhere, but I need silence. When I'm in the creative period I don't have schedules. I eat when I'm hungry and sleep when I'm sleepy. The rest of the day is spent writing.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
FM: Yes, of course. In fact, until now he had been mixing genres: black, travel, historical, romantic...
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
FM: I like to keep abreast of editorial news and I try to read two or three novels a week, when I'm not in writing period. Right now I have on the bedside table we start at the end, by Chris Whitaker, on the recommendation of Dolores Redondo.
Ya I started with the third the three novels that I considered as the XNUMXth century Bilbao trilogy. After writing about the Belle Époque in The city of gray eyes and of the Civil War and the postwar period in The city of the sleeping soul, I am going to a story that will go until the last decades of the century.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
FM: I was lucky that my first novel was published by the first publisher I went to. Then I have to say that the road has not been complicated for me. Yes indeed, I have been working hard for more than fifteen years. The publishing scene is clear: it is published in excess and when there is so much supply, not everything is good. For booksellers it is very difficult to choose between the avalanche of novelties that arrive daily.
- AL: Is the moment of crisis that we are experiencing being difficult for you or will you be able to keep something positive for future stories?
FM: I'm not interested in these times. Y I flee from any reading that smacks of a pandemic. Obviously, this crisis is marking all of us and it will be part of our emotional baggage, for better and for worse.