{"id":10,"date":"2018-01-26T15:26:04","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T20:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/?page_id=10"},"modified":"2019-07-18T14:08:18","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T18:08:18","slug":"profile-fay","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/","title":{"rendered":"Profile: Fay"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>By Celia Konstantellou<\/h3>\n<h6>December 4, 2017<\/h6>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Profile - Fay By Celia Konstantellou\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yhs5UaJiIto?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I met Fay for the first time in an evening dinner in a friend\u2019s house in Boston. What instantly triggered my attention was the fond way she was talking about what she was doing. She was discussing about writing with such enthusiasm and warmth; it was almost captivating. I remember staring at her and thinking that not a lot of people nowadays have this kind of zeal and intensity inside them. One thing she said to me, that first day I saw her, has stayed with me since; \u201cI write to live and I live to write.\u201d \u00a0This short phrase encapsulates her great passion about the path she has chosen to pursue in her life, a path dedicated to creativity and expression.<\/p>\n<p>Following Fay through the gloomy streets of her neighborhood in Brooklyn, one can instantly assume that she has devoted herself to some form of art. Her alternative style and her movements indicate the fact that she is a person who is an observer, always ready to utilize her perception of reality and eagerly transform it into art, the \u201cart of writing\u201d- as she distinctively claims. For her, writing is like \u201cpainting a portrait of the world, or even painting someone\u2019s inner voices or thoughts.\u201d As she wanders around the pavements of her region, heading to the grocery store, she particularly observes people; the way they talk, the way they interact, and she bizarrely focuses on their conversations. She then explains \u201cA writer always pays attention to the world around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As she pushes the heavy, wooden door of her apartment building, in Stockholm Street she specifically points out the number hand carved on it, \u201c162 is the name of my first short story; the one I composed on the 16th of February four years ago, I would love to say that I don\u2019t believe in coincidence.\u201d Her apartment is full of vibrant colors and abstract paintings. All her shelfs are packed with books and magazines. As she states, \u201cReading is like inhaling and writing is like exhaling; reading provides you with all the ideas your hand mechanically jots down.\u201d A stack of papers and notebooks covers up her whole dining table, but apparently it does not bother her, \u201cI love to live with all this intellectual mess; it helps me concentrate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Silence and concentration are key features of Fay\u2019s daily life. As she states, \u201cWriting is like rejecting silence, but you can\u2019t write without it.\u201d Noise comes only from her kitchen. For her, \u201ccooking is a form of creation; it\u2019s like writing, but it\u2019s definitely noisier, it\u2019s [her] number one hobby.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo what extent is it true that a writer\u2019s life is lonely?\u201d She pauses and thinks for a second. She then answers, \u201cAs Jerzy Kosinski once said, gatherings and simultaneously loneliness are the conditions of a writer\u2019s life.\u201d She goes on to describe that she enjoys the company of her good friends, but still, at the end of the day she is craving for some time with herself and her cat, Luna, a name that stands for moon. Her cat\u2019s name is peculiarly related to her writing, \u201cIn almost every single one of my works, I use the moon and its phases either at the beginning or at the ending, it\u2019s all about the sense of mystery and the idea of growth it conveys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is already 11:07 am. She draws the curtains open and she sits down on her chair. She nonchalantly carries a huge cup of hot coffee with her, preparing herself to start a day at work, \u201cSee, I am working from my bedroom,\u201d she points out laughing. Forty minutes have passed, and she is staring blankly at the wall in front of her. She has not moved; she has not written a single word. She suddenly starts scribbling something down on a yellow tinted paper. She then reads it out loud. It is apparently her piece\u2019s introductory sentence, \u201cThis short piece is wholeheartedly dedicated to everyone who wonders if I am writing about them; I truly am.\u201d \u201cDoes it always have to do with people in your life?\u201d \u201cMost of the times, yes.\u201d She proceeds to describe how someone\u2019s experiences have the tremendous power to shape that person and substantially influence the way of perceiving the world and discerning reality, \u201cMost of my works are largely referring to incidents that somehow marked my life and altered me as a personality. I like applying this type of malleability to my writing. It makes it more human. All these experiences- that\u2019s who I am and my writing has to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The room is filled with silence again; the only noise comes from her computer\u2019s keyboard. She is now working on her play script, \u201cOne Thousand and One Nights in Palermo.\u201d As she explains, in a setting of absolute secrecy and enigma the play\u2019s protagonist, Jess Cassidy, is striving to discover who are the enemies and who are the allies in her life, \u201cdon\u2019t we always try to convince people that we are the good guys, the ones they should trust; it\u2019s not always like that.\u201d She goes on to describe how life can sometimes teach us valuable lessons, worth mentioning on a piece of paper, \u201cIt is a writer\u2019s biggest challenge to accurately reflect the harshness and bitterness of the world on simple words.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An album of old photographs stands on her bedside table. She picks it up and holds it tightly uttering that \u201cthese are fragments of [her] past; these are fragments of [her] stories.\u201d She seems to be valuing a lot the role of her family to her upbringing. She feels that they had a lot to do with what she ended up doing, \u201cThey always gave me strength and encouraged me to follow my dreams, no matter how crazy these were; writers are by nature dreamers.\u201d Her personality as a little girl was implying her dreamy nature, \u201cMy dad used to call me Wonderland, as everyone thought that I was living in a world of my own.\u201d As a child growing up she was always curious about the unknown and she was always ready to explore the diverse aspects of reality, \u201cI was obviously keeping a diary, otherwise I would have felt that I could not exist, jotting down my thoughts at any moment was essential.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At 6:30 pm Fay has to visit Jonathan, an eleven-year-old boy who takes private lessons with her on essay writing every Thursday. Her decision to do this stems from her desire to teach young children how to love writing, from a young age. As she particularly states \u201cI don\u2019t really focus on its technical aspect, I am aiming to show him that people are always writing stories in their heads; everyone can be a writer on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fay\u2019s way of finding a place in this world is to actually write one. As she unwraps her life around what she loves most, she is discovering a sense of sincere happiness and accomplishment on a daily basis. Though she has not reached her final destination yet, as she has not published any of her works, she proudly appreciates every single bit of her journey there, by firmly acknowledging that \u201c[she was] created to create.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Celia Konstantellou December 4, 2017 I met Fay for the first time in an evening dinner in a friend\u2019s house in Boston. What instantly triggered my attention was the fond way she was talking about what she was doing. She was discussing about writing with such enthusiasm and warmth; it was almost captivating. I &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Profile: Fay<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Profile: Fay - Telling Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Profile: Fay - Telling Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Celia Konstantellou December 4, 2017 I met Fay for the first time in an evening dinner in a friend\u2019s house in Boston. What instantly triggered my attention was the fond way she was talking about what she was doing. She was discussing about writing with such enthusiasm and warmth; it was almost captivating. I &hellip; Continue reading Profile: Fay\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Telling Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-07-18T18:08:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/\",\"name\":\"Profile: Fay - Telling Stories\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-26T20:26:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-07-18T18:08:18+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Profile: Fay\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/\",\"name\":\"Telling Stories\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Profile: Fay - Telling Stories","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Profile: Fay - Telling Stories","og_description":"By Celia Konstantellou December 4, 2017 I met Fay for the first time in an evening dinner in a friend\u2019s house in Boston. What instantly triggered my attention was the fond way she was talking about what she was doing. She was discussing about writing with such enthusiasm and warmth; it was almost captivating. I &hellip; Continue reading Profile: Fay","og_url":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/","og_site_name":"Telling Stories","article_modified_time":"2019-07-18T18:08:18+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/","url":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/","name":"Profile: Fay - Telling Stories","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-01-26T20:26:04+00:00","dateModified":"2019-07-18T18:08:18+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/profile-fay\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Profile: Fay"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/#website","url":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/","name":"Telling Stories","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/tellingstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}