Marcus Narvaez

What was your favorite book as a child?

As a child I really enjoyed the Magic Tree House series.

Do you remember the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

I was never very good at Math or Science in school, but English was always my best subject. Especially writing essays, but since writing academic essays was kind of boring to me, I decided to write fiction. I shared that with some friends and they loved it which meant a lot to me because my friends usually don't give out many compliments, so I decided to further my creative writing education in college.

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

The summer of 2015 my brother and I got to go to Argentina for the first time. At the time I was sixteen. My parents couldn't travel yet and we had intended to be all together for our first trip to Argentina, but as my brother and I were getting older we realized we might be running out of time as I would be graduating high school soon and would no longer have summers free for trips. The reason this trip was thrilling was because I was able to reconnect with the family who I wrote about in "Goodbye, For a While" and I was able to meet my mom's side of the family who I had never met before including my grandmother. It was the most emotional two weeks of my life, getting to meet the people who were supposed to be some of the most important people in my life.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing?

When writing I like to listen to music that matches the mood of the story. If the character I'm writing is angry then I'll listen to Metallica or Dead Kennedys, but if the tone is lighter I'll listen to something happier. I have to have some kind of noise in the background when I'm reading for some reason the silence is more distracting than anything. I usually do my best reading in the library at school with one headphone in usually listening to different film scores and the other ear listening to the goings-on in the library.