Margarida Mota-Bull

 

I was born in Portugal and lived there until I was 24 years of age. At that point, I decided that having studied foreign languages and literature for my Master’s Degree, I should put its foreign part to work, so packed my bags and went to Germany. Initially, to stay only for six months as an au-pair and improve my German knowledge but actually ended up staying for ten years. Whilst there, I went on to do my teaching qualification and became a teacher of languages and history but also worked as a lecturer, a translator and a television presenter.

One summer, I went to spend a holiday in the Algarve with my family and there met a nice Englishman who eventually was guilty of bringing me to his country. Once in the UK, I first worked as a teacher but suddenly decided I had had enough of unruly teenagers and simply quit. I then got a job at American Express in Brighton and that is where I still work.

Classical music in general and opera in particular were always part of my interests; my father taught me to love them from a very tender age but I never had any formal training until recently when I decided to study music and piano. My greatest passion however is writing, which I have been doing uninterruptedly since I was a child. I write novels, short stories and poetry and one fine day woke up and thought that it would be fun to combine my love for music with my love for writing. That is how I started doing reviews. Several of my reviews, some poems and three novels have been published. I continue to write reviews of books, concerts and opera, and lately also classical music CDs and DVDs. I have done the occasional interview and of course have never stopped writing fiction. This work that I view as pleasure and entertainment and not work, is done parallel with my job, which at the moment is what really pays the bills.

To finalise, I just would like to add that although the above are my main interests and passions, I also love to travel and I like flying, which meant that a couple of years ago I started having helicopter lessons.

Margarida's website is http://www.flowingprose.com/