Q: We would be delighted to discover who the author Alina Diaconu really is.
A: I am a happy person, because I do what I love and because I can devote myself to my passion for writing for children. I am 30 years old, with many beautiful thoughts that I set down on paper and that take shape as stories, short or longer, which enrich the lives of my readers. I also have two children who inspire me, and to whom I am giving the same happy childhood that I had. I want to be better every single day and to put into practice all the ideas, all the thoughts I have. I love expressing my emotions, above all through writing, but also alongside the dear ones whose company I cherish so deeply. I smile, I make mistakes, I cry or I laugh out loud, and I treasure everything around me, people and nature alike.
Q: How did you manage to weave adventure and beauty together to create such a complex book?
A: I put my own experiences onto the page, along with a little imagination. I am glad you find it complex. Thank you! I have to admit that I received a few solutions for the characters' situations from my children, whom I am always challenging to finish a story I have begun.
Q: Where do you draw your inspiration for writing those motivational quotes?
A: I draw it from life! My own, or that of those close to me. I keep a notebook dedicated specially to the "Dar din suflet și hârtie" Collection, and a document on my phone; sometimes a single word can spark the inspiration for the next ones, other times it happens when I gaze at nature, or when I watch my children playing. I can create a quote in a minute, or I can work on the idea of a quote for a whole week to get it just right.
Q: How did readers react to your book?
A: Those who shared their thoughts with me after buying the books gave me encouragement. Every kind word brings me joy.
And then there are my children, who jump for joy on the bed whenever the courier brings another one of my books, as though I were someone terribly important, and of course my husband, who is practically my first editor, and something more besides: an agent and a critic rolled into one. Perhaps my harshest critic, but also the one who helps me come back down to earth when I overdo it with the metaphors.
Q: Where is the place in which we can feel truly happy?
A: I can only tell you where I myself feel truly happy: in my family. Here is where I have managed to find my happiness and my fulfilment, and I try, every day, to give that happiness and fulfilment back. And of course there is a cabin beside a river high in the mountains, a melody that makes me catch my breath, a day on the beach at the seaside, the smile of a child on the street, a little beetle that manages to slip safely past a hedgehog, a flower that finds its way up through the concrete.
In everything around us we can find happiness; my secret is positivity, the thought that I am a lucky and contented person.
Q: Can a being be described through a single photograph?
A: Certainly! I have a photograph of my grandmother in the living room; you can see her whole life on her face. She is holding me with one hand and my sister with the other, and she is smiling. Her lips are sunk into the grooves carved by time.
Another photograph is one of me and my husband from our wedding, in which I am holding him in my arms, my eyes squeezed shut, my hands clutching his jacket.
I believe a photograph can say more than we, as people, ever have the courage to say.
Q: How can we discover the purpose of tomorrow?
A: The purpose of tomorrow is not something to be discovered, it is something we must create ourselves.
By finding ourselves, we discover what we are and what better thing we can do for ourselves and for all that surrounds us.
Q: Are you currently working on a sequel to the book, or on a new book?
A: I am always working on something new; I have material for at least 20 more books, all of them in the process of ripening and being polished. But my attention right now is on the "Salvează Planeta" project, a collection created especially for children. I want to bring to light what is happening to us today and what could change if we were more responsible towards the world we live in, the world that has given us so much for so many years, the world we are destroying. I want it to be an optimistic project, but I am still working on the positive points; when I get there, you will find out, probably at the very same moment I do.
Q: Where can our readers follow your work?
A: On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PovestileTaleDeAlinaDiaconu and on my website: povestile-tale.ro, where I also post short stories, too short to be published, but too lovely to leave hidden away in a drawer.
Q: Do you have a message for the BookNation community?
A: I wish all readers to delight in every piece of writing, and to guide more and more children towards reading printed books. I also wish them to feel everything they live through, to rejoice in the small daily victories, and to live every moment to the full.
