What do you want to know, you nosy munchkins?
After drafting a first version of that, I kid you not, it's not as eventful as you would expect it to be.
My name is Antonina, but you might know me as Tosia. Pronunciation of the latter sounds like torch in Portuguese, and as much as I appreciate a linguistic "you're on fire" joke, it turns me off by now. Hence the juggling of my names.
Bookseller was my first title at Good Company, and I danced into Events Management quite naturally over the course of the first year of the bookstore. Spending hours on the floor with other booksellers turned out to be the most inspiring time at work, and as much as I love the hypothetical space of the mind, I take the most pleasure out of seeing the idea's journey to real life, when it takes shape, it turns and jumps over the bridge, and looks for a travel bud, gets lost and finds itself again, and this metaphor is too long and ends now. Let's talk about you for a second.
Why do you come to cultural events? Do you want a new experience, learn about something new, or discuss something you know? Are you looking for a connection, building a community, or a space to be seen? Do you have a thought to share, a book to recommend? It's a give-and-take, and that's what makes it dynamic and surprising at times. It doesn't hurt that the audience here at Good Company is a deeply stimulating and sophisticated one with a critical mind and sublime taste, which makes our events one-of-a-kind.
A big portion of my day involves responding to your messages with brilliant, mostly, ideas, and I read them thoroughly. Here lies quite often the story of origin of many events like Art Talks with Jeanne Couailler, Write Now with Patricia Anzini, or many book clubs that meet monthly at the bookstore.
When the tables turn, and I have to be the one writing a message, I stop being so confident, my palms get sweaty, and I lose ability in all my languages. The most nerve-wracking encounter had to be writing and then, luckily, meeting Kalaf Epalanga for the first time when he visited us for a talk on his novel Whites Can Dance Too. He came in with all his swag and sway, full of humility and open heart, and after experiencing his presence and observing curious people in the room who came to talk to him, I realized I want to do this. I want to organize events that make people gather, discuss, have an experience with like-minded people, and go home with a few more contacts in their phones and a few more memories to feel nostalgic about one day.
You still don't know what my day looks like. Mind your own business and let me tell you something more interesting. How does an event come to life? That involves something I like to call flânerie, which is, bear with me, adventuring beyond our bookstore for cultural gatherings, talking to you and trying to understand what is important to you, me, and Good Company, because if I am able to hit all three, we have a perfect event.
When the idea is right there upon the palm of my hand like a tiny big-eyed frog, firstly, I look around for anybody who recognizes this particular species and can help me feed it with all the right things. Then we lose ourselves in questions and answers until we know exactly what to do to keep it alive. After gathering all the information we needed, we gently passed the frog to Mary, our social media manager, to make a fancy dress for our frog, and here I realized that the botanical metaphor wasn't the best one to start with at all.
This is to say, some events you see take a lot of time to prepare or even define in the first place, hence my day is never the same. Sometimes you will find me building a page on our website for the next event, sometimes I'll be at the cafe taking your order or at the table having a meeting with our next event host. Once a month, you can meet me moderating the Lusophone Book Club, which is probably where I show up as the most unfiltered version of myself to drag out the guts of Lusophone Literature and dissect it with you. I've also had to be technical support during the events, which for a bookworm is a completely new world, and now I am the person in the office that everyone asks where the extra cable for the sound system is.
The newest part of my job is moderating author talks, which I did when we hosted Bruna Dantas Lobato, Brazilian author and translator. Preparing for this type of event is never the same; sometimes I have a history with the author, sometimes I base the conversation on the latest novel. The event with Bruna was a time when I knew where to start. As a translation nerd myself, I knew we were going to dive deep into the meanders of language, exophony, and self-translation, and Bruna did not disappoint; she is absolutely a joy to listen to. On days like that one, when we host incredible people and a great audience, I finish my day with a glass of wine and a prolonged conversation after "Closing Time" has been played from the speakers.
You still don't know what my day looks like. If I had a daily routine to describe here, it would kill my flânerie. Just imagine it's a tiny big-eyed frog, my job is to keep it alive.
