My story. My route.

Words can change the world and, with a little luck and good will, they can help transform people’s lives.

Welcome to the yellow refuge! My name is Maria Inês Rebelo, I was born in Lisbon and my purpose is to offer others my vision of humanity through writing.

I was born in 1985, when the famous song “We are the world, we are the children” was playing on every radio station in the world. I was told that this was a torrid summer. My first word was “Light”, when I pointed my finger at the light on the kitchen ceiling. I was born in the mid-80s and I’m a crab with a crab ascendant. In addition to this stellar background, I spent most of my childhood at my grandparents’ house, which had an attic. This attic is now part of my memories, my identity and my fantasies.

I grew up with time: time to think, to reflect, to wander, to travel and to deepen my knowledge of people. My reading habits started late, in my pre-adolescence. For those who think I’ve always had a peaceful relationship with writing, don’t be fooled. I had a painful time learning consonants in kindergarten and until I was twelve, I hardly ever picked up books. I also carried notes home because of my reading and writing difficulties.

As an adult, I graduated in law, but I never practiced law. I always thought that the application of justice was for the “gods” and that my destiny would not be linked to the judicial world.

Today I work as a sales assistant for a Portuguese footwear company, helping to expand the business to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. My connection to words goes back a long way, with the publication of my first book “Voluntary work, a legal and social reflection” in 2015.

That’s why I know that the best way to write correctly is to acquire reading habits. Just like a doctor’s prescription that you can’t miss, there are no magic solutions here either. To learn to write well and better, you have to read. With an established routine, reading becomes a pleasure and an addiction, it elevates us to a new understanding of life, broadens horizons, culture, sensitivity and human touch. This is what I discovered when, at the age of twelve, I discovered the pleasure of reading Jules Verne’s books during a hot summer.

After the publication of the book “Voluntary Work, a Legal and Social Reflection” (the result of my Master of Laws research), I turned professionally to the German market and passionately to writing. I continued to write and, in 2019, I published an author’s edition on Amazon and Ingram Spark of my novel “Hypnosis, The Return to the Past“. This book is available for sale on these platforms in English. In 2021, the same book was published in Portuguese by Editora Gato Bravo. I think all the authors are wild cats who don’t like living in captivity.

The third book was to appear in an unusual way. One day in November 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, I was sitting on a bench in Lisbon when a lady sat down next to me and started telling me her life story. This is how the book of chronicles, “O Caderno Amarelo” (The Yellow Notebook), available in the store on this website, came about. From that moment on, my interest in writing memoirs and biographies grew. I confess that this is now my favorite literary style, both in reading and writing.

“O Caderno Amarelo” (The Yellow Notebook) defines my literary personality today and was the motto for the creation of my writing brand: Pássaro Amarelo (Yellow Bird). It gave me great pleasure to write more than two hundred pages by hand over the course of a year, absorbing the conversations and events that took place in the neighborhood where I lived. With this book, I learned to be an author.

Over the years, I have also regularly written smaller texts, which I decided to include in the collection “A New Show and Other Stories“. Both this book and “The Yellow Notebook“, in its second revised and expanded edition, can be read and purchased at the Bubok online bookstore, on Amazon (in Kindle version) and in this website’s online store.

I believe that words shine a light beneath the darkness, helping to make chaos more understandable. At least, I know that they make us more lucid and sensitive, agile and human, helping to escape suffering, creating universes that give us hope. As the title of João de Melo’s book says, “My world is not of this kingdom”.

Are you looking for someone who is a native speaker of Portuguese and who can deliver a high-quality end result? Have you done active research on the different online search engines for freelancer jobs and found no one who you think will understand the tone of your brand? Your company? Then let’s talk!

Marvão and the Birds

There are always those who ask themselves, what will be the inspiration of an Author and if he/ she writes only guided by a force of emotions, or by a rigorous discipline. Without detracting from the importance of inspiration, the work of writing involves a great deal of consistency, over a considerable amount of time. Therefore, publishing a book, for example, does imply having a discipline based on well-defined writing schedules.

There is no such thing as a writing process, solely guided by inspiration. This is nowadays a very romanticized process, with a good dose of fantasy and illusion. This does not mean that there are no places, books, objects and people that inspire us daily and that are a source of inspiration when words take the form of stories.

My place of inspiration is Marvão. Throughout this website, you will see several photographs of this Portuguese village that is located in the district of Portalegre, Alto Alentejo region, located at an altitude of 860 meters, in Serra do Sapoio.

Marvão is a medieval village, perfectly preserved in time. The whitewashed houses, the streets made of old stone, the churches, the pillory, the wide views over the horizon (José Saramago used to say that “from Marvão, you can see the whole land”), make me feel connected with my own identity, my “I”, my truth, my soul. When we connect to the soul, to what we are, there arises this light within us that we can call inspiration. Inspiration is, therefore, a kind of moment of clarity, in which we realize who we are and where we want to go. It is a unique moment of lucidity about ourselves.

It is often said that Marvão is the “nest of eagles” and that “from Marvão, you can see the eagles from behind”.

For me, Marvão is the place where the soul meets the sky, it is the victory of the spiritual over the material: it is to have a comprehensive and wise vision of life, to be above the clouds and thus achieve true spiritual and human evolution. It’s flying with the birds, in full freedom.

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