IN QUESTION #01 – Marcela: What lies behind a story?
IN QUESTION #01 – Marcela: What lies behind a story?
Every story begins somewhere.
Sometimes, in an experience. In a memory. In a conversation. In pain. In a dream. Sometimes, it begins simply with someone's encounter with a book.
To launch IN QUESTION, I sat down with Marcela Bissoli Mauri, a writer, specialist in Language and Literature, and postgraduate in Digital Journalism. Marcela has already published four books and is working toward her fifth.
But before the writer who now publishes novels and other works, there was a girl who found her favorite place in the world at the municipal library.
And perhaps that's precisely where one of the most interesting questions of this first conversation lies: what exists before a person becomes what we recognize in them?
Marcela tells us.
1. To begin, who is Marcela behind the writer?
Marcela: I'm Marcela Bissoli Mauri, a writer and specialist in Language and Literature, and more recently a postgraduate in Digital Journalism.
Above all, I'm passionate about books. Fiction holds a special place in my heart.
I'm married, a mother to Beatriz, a wonderful teenager, and also the guardian of two cats who make our home even happier. I've been an English teacher at CCAA for 20 years, a job that brings me great joy. Those who know me know that I love studying. I'm always learning something new.
In my leisure time, I'm always surrounded by words, whether as a reader or as a writer. My preferred genre is the novel—I read them voraciously, which has made my writing reflect a little of all the stories I've been transported to through the pages of books.
2. When did you realize that writing could be part of your life? Did you always want to write, or did that arise at a specific moment?
Marcela: Since childhood, I've had a great passion for books, but it all became more evident around the age of 10. I lived in the city of São Gabriel da Palha, studied in the morning shift, and right after getting home and having lunch, I would go to the Municipal Library, which was very close to my house.
I simply loved that place. Just arriving and being able to breathe that air filled with the scent of books would turn any ordinary day into something extraordinary. While other kids went out to play in the street, I would go to be among the books—my favorite refuge.
Over time, I started helping the librarian, because I knew exactly where everything was. I even helped students from various grades and ages find the subjects they needed to research in the books. I wouldn't even notice the time passing.
The most curious thing about all of this is that I didn't have any encouragement from my parents for this passion—it simply came naturally! They never even suggested the idea of "spending" money on buying books.
Among all the stories I read in childhood, one in particular held a special place in my heart: it was called The Little Vampire. I would read it and reread it, and as if that weren't enough, I would borrow it almost every week to take home.
"Why are you taking the same book again?" Aunt Luzia, the beloved librarian, would ask.
"Since I can't buy it, having it with me for a few days gives me the feeling that it belongs to me, and that's enough. Going to sleep knowing it's there waiting for me the next day makes me very happy. That's why I'm taking it again."
As the years passed, I drifted a bit away from books in early adulthood. But when I returned, writing came along with it—though I never had any intention of publishing. They were scattered texts, but always with a hint of fiction.
In 2020 and 2021, living through the historic pandemic we were all part of, I found myself with a manuscript of several chapters, lightly portraying everything my family and I had been learning during that period of isolation—all the pain and all the lessons.
That's how the first book came to be, published in 2021: Memórias de uma pandemia (Memories of a Pandemic), a work of nonfiction, which I consider a milestone in my life and the beginning of my career as a writer.
Since then, I'm already working toward my fifth publication.
In 2023, I released Marcados pelo coração (Marked by the Heart), my first novel—a story that won over many readers across Brazil.
In 2024 came the publication of 12 erros de português mais comuns na escrita (12 Most Common Portuguese Writing Mistakes), bringing a light and direct approach to the most frequent errors made by Brazilians, which I observed over the years working as a text reviser for writers and publishers.
In 2025, another novel: Lembranças de você (Memories of You), a beautiful story set against the backdrop of Italian immigration to Brazil—a book written from the heart.
I'm currently over a year into the writing process for the next book, to be published in 2027: Entre livros e silêncios (Between Books and Silences), a story set in Portugal, and it will be a comfort novel—a genre that's currently trending in the literary market.
3. You have a degree in Languages and a postgraduate degree in Language and Literature. How has your academic background influenced your relationship with writing and literature?
Marcela: My degree in Languages and Literature undoubtedly plays a profound role in my journey as a writer.
Perhaps the greatest contribution is the refinement of analytical ability. With a deeper knowledge of normative grammar and intertextuality, as well as the resources and techniques studied in literature, the course teaches you to "read between the lines."
For the writer, this translates into a more rigorous look at one's own production. The ability to critically analyze what you write allows for a much deeper and more professional revision, elevating the final quality of the work even before it reaches the hands of an editor.
In short, my education gave me a clinical eye. Today I write with more awareness, knowing exactly the weight of each word I put on paper, moving between different registers—from formal standard language to colloquialism—with greater precision.
4. What usually sparks your creativity? An experience, a conversation, a person, a song, a place, a memory, or simply an idea?
Marcela: My creative writing process begins, first and foremost, with a calm environment—which is more than a preference; it's a necessity. It's in this space of serenity that the characters' voices begin to whisper, the plots unfold, and the settings come to life.
The absence of external noise allows the inner melody of the story to manifest itself fully, without interruptions. It's there, in the quiet, that I connect with the essence of what I want to convey, transforming scattered thoughts into cohesive chapters and emotions into words.
Another crucial point for me is handwriting, which emerges as a ritual—a tangible link to the art of storytelling. The gliding of the pen across the paper is not merely a mechanical act, but an extension of thought, a continuous flow that connects the mind to the heart of the narrative. Each stroke, each handwritten word, carries a particular energy, an intimacy that typing sometimes cannot replicate. It's a process that invites patience, reflection, and a deeper connection to the text being generated.
And where do the seeds of these stories come from? From life—from the inexhaustible richness of everyday life.
A glance exchanged over coffee, an overheard conversation, the beauty of a simple gesture, the complexity of human relationships, dreams—everything becomes raw material. With care and sensitivity, we capture these fragments of existence and weave them into plots of love, overcoming, and discovery. The stories of daily life, with their joys and challenges, are the fertile ground where novels take root, flourish, and become mirrors of human experience itself.
Thus, in the silence, pencil in hand and heart open to life's nuances, I unravel worlds, create bonds, and above all, celebrate the timeless art of telling love stories.
5. Where do the stories you write usually come from? Is there a pattern in your creative process, or does each story come to life differently?
Marcela: The seeds of these stories come from life—from the inexhaustible richness of everyday life. A glance exchanged over coffee, an overheard conversation, the beauty of a simple gesture, the complexity of human relationships, dreams—everything becomes raw material.
With care and sensitivity, we capture these fragments of existence and weave them into plots of love, overcoming, and discovery.
Ketty's Perspective
One of the things that struck me most about Marcela's story is that her relationship with literature doesn't seem to have begun with the intention of becoming a writer.
It started before that. It started with a girl who found at the library something she perhaps couldn't even name at the time: belonging.
While other children were out in the street, she chose books. Not because someone had determined she should read, nor because she had received any specific training for it. According to her own account, that passion simply came to life.
And there's something very significant about that. I believe that, often, we look at a person who is already fully formed—the published writer, the teacher, the researcher, the artist—and we forget to ask what existed before that identity.
In Marcela's case, there was a child who wanted to own a book. Not just read it. To have it with her.
The passage in which she tells how she repeatedly borrowed *The Little Vampire* because she couldn't buy it strikes me as especially symbolic. She knew the book wasn't really hers, but having it for a few days produced a sense of belonging. And perhaps that reveals something essential about what books can represent for some people: they are not just objects that carry stories. They can become places where someone feels at home.
It's also interesting to notice that writing only came later. First came the reader. Then the experience. Then the texts. And only later came publication.
This makes me think that perhaps writing doesn't necessarily begin when someone puts a word on paper. Perhaps it begins much earlier, when a person starts observing the world in a certain way.
Marcela herself confirms this perception when she talks about her creative process. Her stories don't seem to be born exclusively from major events. They can arise from a glance exchanged over coffee, an overheard conversation, a simple gesture, or the complexity of human relationships.
In other words, for her, writing seems to be closely linked to paying attention. And perhaps that's precisely what distinguishes the experience of simply living from the experience of transforming life into literary material.
We all go through situations, meet people, overhear conversations, and accumulate memories. But the writer develops—or perhaps cultivates—a different kind of attention. He observes what could go unnoticed and asks, even if silently: what if this were a story?
Another point I find interesting is Marcela's relationship with silence and with handwriting.
We live in a time when producing has become almost synonymous with speed. We type, delete, rewrite, and send in seconds. In this context, choosing paper and pen as part of the creative process seems almost like a resistance to haste. And there's something beautiful in that.
Handwriting imposes a rhythm. It forces thought to keep pace with the movement of the hand. Perhaps it's precisely this slowness that allows certain ideas to mature.
When Marcela speaks of transforming "scattered thoughts into cohesive chapters and emotions into words," she touches on a question I consider central to literature: writing is not just recording what we think; it's organizing what we feel and perceive until someone else can cross that experience with us.
Her academic background adds another layer to this process.
Marcela herself states that Languages and Literature gave her a "clinical eye" for the text. This reveals an apparent tension that I find very interesting: on one side, there's the sensitivity necessary to create; on the other, the rigor necessary to revise.
Inspiration may bring the story, but it doesn't necessarily deliver the finished work. There's a difference between having something to say and knowing how to build the way to say it.
In that sense, creativity and technique don't have to be adversaries. On the contrary. They can work together.
Perhaps that's one of the great questions that remain from this first IN QUESTION interview.
Where does a story come from?
Marcela's answer seems to point in many directions at once: it comes from the books we read, the experiences we live, the people we meet, the things we observe, the silence we create, and even from what we feel without knowing how to explain.
But there's something else. A story is born when someone decides not to let a certain experience die within themselves.
The girl who frequented the library in São Gabriel da Palha perhaps didn't know that, years later, she would write her own books. But that girl was already, in some way, building the writer she would become.
Perhaps because, before writing stories, she spent years learning to enter other people's stories.
And perhaps every writer is, above all, a great reader of life.
About Marcela
Marcela Bissoli Mauri is a writer, specialist in Language and Literature, and postgraduate in Digital Journalism. She has been an English teacher for 20 years and has four published works, moving toward her fifth book, Entre livros e silêncios (Between Books and Silences), scheduled for 2027.
Her works include Memórias de uma pandemia (Memories of a Pandemic, 2021), Marcados pelo coração (Marked by the Heart, 2023), 12 erros de português mais comuns na escrita (12 Most Common Portuguese Writing Mistakes, 2024), and Lembranças de você (Memories of You, 2025).
To follow her work:
Instagram: @marcelaescritora
IN QUESTION
Real people, stories that make you think.
The first edition ends here, but the question remains:
What lies behind a story?
Perhaps the answer lies precisely in the people who had the courage to tell it.
Would you like to follow the next editions?
If you enjoyed this first conversation, sign up on the website to receive a notification whenever a new edition of IN QUESTION is published.
New people, new stories, new perspectives, and new questions.
Sign up and don't miss the next edition.
Written by Ketty Williams
August 12, 2026
Interview with Marcela Bissoli Mauri