Collaborates with: Scuola Holden, Escuela de Escritores, Escrever Escrever

What I would like from EACWP:

• Networking events with Individual Members,

• Skill-sharing sessions

• Regular updates on professional opportunities (in the style of NAWE's The Writer's Compass but for Europe)

A little piece of my writing:

She’s said “gianella” instead of “finestra”. From janela, fado’s signature word. People were always doing something at the window in fado songs. Opening the curtains to let the moonlight in. Hang carnations. Look longingly towards the sea. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that Portuguese people have invented windows, so proud they are of them. (from “Brinking”, a short story)

Somebody else's words:

“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination

To meet writers in Europe and to attend and lead workshops, attend and speak on panels, attend and give inspirational talks on writing throughout Europe.

A little piece of my writing:

I am amazed at how much the heart can break and still keep beating.

Somebody else's words:

“We still and always want waking. We should amass half-dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other, to wake up.” –Annie Dillard

What I'd love to see as part of the EACWP:

--I'm going to start by seconding Elena's idea about the European professional opportunities

--a good balance of online and in-place activities. It's really hard as an individual member to attend on-place very often, but they are really rewarding when reachable.

A Random Stanza of my Writing:

She may well be a tired iris’s moment of surrender,

hung behind half-open markets with their bijouterie,

their T-shirts offering sexy epigrams, their winter oranges

the pictures of health that taste of Granada’s dusty sun.

Is here on behalf of: ArtEZ & the EACWP

What I'm here for tonight:

• Meeting all of you!

• Getting input for our brand new, showstopping website-to-be

A piece of my writing:

• Talk to my hummus bot to craft a personalized hummus recipe through www.hananfaour.nl/hummusbot for dutch and www.hananfaour.nl/hummusboten for english (i just did a rough translation, disregard any typos :-))

Collaborates with: Bee Writing Creating Writing Workshops Online and in Brussels (Founder)

What i would like from EACWP :

Sharing skills, knowledge and techniques on teaching CW.

Updates on Professional opportunities.

Interesting Creative Writing courses and retreats.

A little piece of my writing :

Somebody else's writing :

I am from Lorca, where I grew up and have spent almost half of my life, at times in other cities in Spain, while the other more-than-half I have been moving around the world.

I am a lover of short narrative fiction and non-fiction since the age of ten when I won a prize in a school competition at regional level served as a catalyst for my love of writing and reading. Since then, I have received dozens of prizes and reached finalist in many literary competitions, having already participated in over seventy short stories and tales anthologies with other authors.

In 2017 and 2018, I have published three short narrative books — the trilogy Relatamente Cortos (Círculo Rojo), and in 2021 with my son Adrián the book Palo y Astilla (Universo de Letras-Grupo Planeta) containing short stories, tales and poems.

My professional experience is of almost forty years as an Expert in Management of International Cooperation and Development Projects and Programmes, predominantly with the United Nations and the European Union, spanning an array of assignments and countries.

The professional and personal experience around the globe is certainly discernible and feeds into my narrative, where fiction and non-fiction blend into dreams, emotions, and aspirations — ultimately stories of life itself, which engage the reader to become part of them.

I retired last year and since then I have been living with my wife Rose Mery in Costa Rica and Spain where I continue writing and carrying out professional activities as a Consultant.

What I am looking for at EACWP:

• Professional soulmates

• Professional events (conferences, seminars etc.) where we can gain new knowledge, exchange experience and do networking

• Sharing new finds, methods, links etc.

Excerpt from my story "Lichens":

"At first, Brita ran easily and quickly, not thinking about roads, a map, Reval, or meeting Dahl. In this moment she was the only person running along this satisfying plane, Brita quickened her steps to melt her rage, she looked only at the monotonous rocky path of earth, then around her the silence became deep and satisfying, and the birds sang, sounds from the tops of the trees over the lowest part of the forest floor. Brita stopped, left the path and stepped onto the earth of the forest. She tilted her head up to the crowns of trees that joined and melted into the clouds, then peered back at the ground and saw the reason she had come here, - low and soft moss and lichens. She smiled, gasping. Something was recovered in that moment. Brita glanced over at the road, the stands of trees and cliff ridges in the distance. Everything was blanketed in the quiet of the early evening, there was no one around. Brita took a map from her backpack. On the map she’d marked the rental cabin and the place where she was meeting Dahl. She drew her finger along the cartographic lines, every once in a while looking up to see if the surroundings were right. She resumed her way forward along the road, she wasn’t late yet. Brita spotted the traveler’s hut from a distance, it must be the right one. Arriving at the tiny hut, she opened the door. Inside was some firewood and a bucket. She set her backpack down against the side of the hut and took out some accessories. The forest resembled the sound of a seashell. It was a big seashell too - twisted from serpentine hills, on the other side of which you might emerge into a valley."

Associated with: Falmouth University

What I would like from EACWP:

• Networking events

• Skill-sharing sessions

• Updates on professional opportunities in Europe

Some of my writing:

He thought of the coyote—patchy and skeletal—plunging alone into the undergrowth and not emerging. He thought of the warmth of Ron’s shirt that would be waiting for him on the shore, the hand that would fall to his shoulder, and he charged forward to the sound of Ron’s renewed laughter, driving his half-numb feet through the water until he lost his balance and crashed face first into the icy runoff. (from a recent short story)

Tutor of: Creative Writing in Greek and in English (Short Story, Flash Fiction, Microfiction, Poetry, Experimental Writing, Mixed Media approaches to Literature, Literary Performance etc.)

Research interests: Creative Writing, Objects, Phenomenology

Curator of: SARDAM interdisciplinary literature festival

Co-curator of: Limassol international Book Fair

Full bio, writing samples and more info in English, here:

www.maria-alpha-ioannou.com

What I would like from EACWP:

• cooperation in creative writing programmes and literary events in Cyprus, abroad and online / cooperation in European programmes

• networking / sharing of fresh ideas

• translation opportunities

  
  

“Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

―Franz Kafka

Collaborates with: Scuola Holden

What I would like from EACWP:

Networking events with individual members

Skill sharing sessions

Teachers Training Sessions, online and in person

A little piece of my writing:

You can find here my collection of short stories

Somebody else's words:

"More and more of less and less"

Marina Abramovic

What I would like from EACWP:

• Networking events

• regular updates on professional opportunities in Europe

• online meetings to further develop and shape the future of creative writing teaching in Europe

• opportunities to collaborate with other individual members

A little piece of my writing:

Hypocrisy has a Face                                                 

You claim truths which are unreliable,

Facts that are no doubt fictional,

Embrace fabrications as if true,

Disregard details that exist as evidence, 

Censor with the intention of falsifying history, 

Since truth makes you a traitor, a martyr, a victim.

That is to say, you lie to exist.

Somebody else's words:

"Every word has consequences. Every silence, too."

– Jean-Paul Sartre