Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
My name is Vesela Nikolova Flamburari and I was born on January in 1967 at the town of Dobrich (on the Black Sea), Bulgaria. I was born in the family of a teacher and a sculptor. I graduated from Academy of Theater and Film Arts in Sofia with a degree in actress and the National University in Sofia with a degree in Culturology. I am a member of the Union of Bulgarian Writers. I have a large number of Bulgarian and international awards for children’s literature. So far, I have published eighteen (18) books in the genres of children’s and teen fantasy, children’s literature and fiction for the little ones. According to my stories, there are TV series in the Bulgarian National Television, and radio programs in the Bulgarian National Radio. I participated in the initiative of the National Television, for Bulgaria’s favorite children’s book – “The Big Writing” (under license from the BBC “The Big Writing”) – and I reached the sixty-fifth (65) place among authors and books children from all over the world and from all times.
I was chairman of the jury for the National Prize for Children’s Literature “Petya Karakoleva” and the International Children’s and Teen Literary Competition “Stefan Gechev”, organized by the National Agency for Bulgarians Abroad. For several years in a row ,I was a member of the jury for the National Awards for Contribution to Children’s Book Publishing “Konstantin Konstantinov”. I was also a member of the jury and of the National Children’s and Youth Competition “Longing for Growing Creativity”, organized by the Human Library Foundation. After all the above, I must add that I have very dark brown eyes, long brown hair and I like to laugh, sing and believe that the sun shines for everyone.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Instead of publishing the name of the last book I wrote, I will tell you more about my first book in English this year, and this is the book Mine, Magic, and the White Beaker (this is the first part of my Trilogy Tales from the upper earth ”)
I also have a whole odyssey about writing the book. I come from the town of Dobrich (there is in The Black Sea). As a child I sang in the Representative Children’s Choir of Dobrich. The choir was one of the four children’s formations that represented our country abroad in these days, we traveled outside the Iron Curtain even… We went with my friends every summer a month vacancy at the children’s camp “Ifkata”. The building of this camp was the fence of the Palace of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter – Maria – in Balchik (on the Black Sea). Then, for several years in a row, the Palace stood locked, closed, but mysterious and overgrown with greenery. I entered it secretly, just as Mina enters, through holes in the fence. I was walking and dreaming. The camp was not just a vacation! No… Every day we had rehearsals for singing, solfeggio, piano. It was a great school. This is the way that the school for gifted children “Seven Muses” appeared in my book.
Years later, my husband, Dr. Vasileios Flamburaris, and I were walking in the Palace and saw a large pink lizard. The lizard stood on a rock and the three of us looked at each other for a long time. Then the book itself appeared as if by magic…
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I have a solid and not so solid place to write … The solid is a very student desk-library at home. But also like to write on cafes, because the noise of people focuses me. Yes, I know both places are not exotic. My workplace, like a school, is not something strange, but simply something useful.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I have learned from many authors of literature for children and young people. I can give as an example some of them, such as: Homer, Euripides, Shakespeare, Gianni Rodari, Dora Gabe, Donald Bisset, Carl Sandberg, Valery Petrov, Ray Bradbury, John Tolkien, Nikolai Raynov, Svetoslav Minkov, Pamela Travers, Louis Carroll, Ran Bosilek, Angel Karaliychev, Clifford Simak, Beatrix Potter, Nikola Rusev, Joan Rowling, Philip Pullman, Tuve Janson, Astrid Lindgren, Boris Aprilov, Evgenios Trivizas, Rada Moskova and others.
What are you working on now?
I am writing a new novel in the fantasy genre. A novel for children and teenagers. My new novel is about Europe before the wars of the twentieth century. Two children fall into the era of Belle Époque and Art Nouveau. The novel is called “At Midnight from M Station.”
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
A very important part of a book’s life is its presentations to an audience. This is really a presentation, not the premiere of the book. The premiere is an one-time act that brings together the author and his fans in one evening, which is dedicated only to the new published book. The presentation of a book or author, in turn, can happen all the time. Whenever there is a desire and a need. An author may be a contemporary, but he may also have been a long-established classic. Of course, when an author is alive, meeting him and his work at the same time could be very interesting .As long as the author takes care of the interesting presentation of his books… This is especially true of children’s literature, because anyway the most book presentations are organized for children.
Such meetings with children and their parents can also be organized with the help of Skype and Zoom. As for the platforms on the Internet, I think they are all appropriate.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Yes,a lot of such advice, so I organized it in a practical course in creative writing of children’s literature.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Advices are so much and varied, but the most important thing is when will have a writer the character and patience to listen and consider them.
What are you reading now?
I am reading a fiction book for children and adults and some of literary theories.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I want to write new books. This is my method and my strategy ,to do the best job.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Gianni Rodari’s Grammar of Fantasy, Mircea Iliade’s The Myth of Eternal Return, Joseph Campbell’s Creative Mythology, Clarissa Pincola Estes’s Running with Wolves, and Joan Harris’s Five Quarters of an Orange. And then I’ll have to swim back for at least five hundred more books from my library that I really can’t live without them.
Email: vesela_flamburari@yahoo.com