Vanessa MintVanDi

Biography

Lonely Armadillo (a.k.a. Vanessa MintVanDi) is an English writer of slow-built slice of life and psychological drama. A child of jewellery merchants, she studied English Literature in the National Kapodistrian University of Athens, where she found rock n' roll and later on completed her MA on The Greek Element in Anglophone Literature. She is a Gemini, and an avid fan of the Friends, Music and English Literature triptych. She takes a guilty pleasure in fanfiction and has penned stories under the pen-name MarquiseWanda. She has engaged in choir singing, project photoshooting and stage performing. When she doesn't write her books, plunge into the unknown realms of the Job Market or travel to the UK in search of rock n' roll, she lives with her cat, Ciel, and works as an English Language and Literature teacher.
Notable works by Lonely Armadillo include:
Memorabilia
The Secret Life of Kenneth Adams
A Friend to Bleed
There Are Many Ways to Love

Smashwords Interview

Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I grew up in Athens, and I have never been particularly thrilled about it. It was in the university when my musician friends introduced me to a darker, more absorbing part of that city I thought I knew so well; the nightlife. I became fascinated with the underground bars in the heart of the capital, playing metal and attracting people from all walks of life. A certain sense of familiarity hovered in the air, created by nothing more than our youth and taste in music. This fascination with the nightlife, the way it manipulates people into nearly everything and how people familiarise themselves with it and the darker parts of the city is the feeling I have tried to instill in my writing.
Who are your favorite authors?
I like writers who can create characters with a certain depth and ambiguity. I am particularly fond of antiheroes. I became thrilled with Christopher Marlowe, because unlike writers of his era, he has created characters who are neither uniquely good or bad. Edward II would be a striking example of this. Everything in this play and everything in Marlowe's writing is ambiguous and he is uniquely talented in creating sympathy for his antiheroes.This is also what I thought of Lord Byron when I read Cain, which is one of my favourite plays. I love Marquis de Sade because his writing is so ambiguously careening between good and evil, you can never be certain where he stands. He had his own view on ethics, which I particularly admire, even though I could never agree with. I admire his unique ability to bring forward the most debased and foul arguments with such reason and logic, he may actually convince you he is right. Last but by no means least, I adored Oscar Wilde when I read De Profundis and Salome. Apart from wit, which seems to be brimming out of his books, I like the way he handles beauty and the impact it has on a person.
Read more of this interview.

Where to find Vanessa MintVanDi online

Where to buy in print

Books

This member has not published any books.