Writer, wanderer, and seeker of stories, Marta moves through life guided by instinct and open curiosity. From Liverpool’s wind‑lined paths to the mountains she still calls home, she follows the rhythm of her steps - finding meaning in motion, presence, and the quiet spaces in between.

Myself

Who are you and what kind of life do you live?

I am twenty nine years old and I live in Liverpool, in England. Life brought me here, but it is not a place I chose as my home. I do not know how long I will stay, but I know it is not where I want to see my years pass.

I want to know everything, and everything seems interesting to me. I can lose myself, and very often I do, in the stories of other people. I never stop asking questions.
I travel a lot and this is how I spend most of my free time. Travel for me is India, Nepal, Poland, Somalia, but also the small farm outside the city or the little village on the other side of the water. Travel is every day. It is nothing and it is everything.

When I lived in Italy, I often spent time in the mountains, walking or simply being there. I used to climb and I am starting to visit indoor gyms again, waiting to meet someone to return to the cliffs with. But perhaps I should accept that this belongs to a past chapter, because the mountains mean something different to me now.
People who know me say that when I go up there, my face becomes calm, my movements slow down, I become quiet and my voice becomes softer. I do not know if it is true, but I feel at home there.

How do your work and your passions reflect who you are? How do you balance the two?

I am lucky to have work, actually two kinds of work, that reflect my passion for reading and writing. I consider them inseparable. When I write, I read myself again and again. I bring my own interpretation of reality, of the story I am telling, and of the characters who live in it.

Reading is also a way of writing, through sounds, images and sensations. No two people imagine the characters of a novel in the same exact way, with the same voice or the same movements.

For work, I write fiction and articles for newspapers, and at the same time I work as a bookseller. Writing is a solitary craft and its beauty is that it can happen anywhere. Working in a bookshop, even if I love solitude, brings me into contact with people and with the world. This is important, especially because I live in a country that is not mine, and the work allows me to talk about books and to suggest them to others.

This balance is influenced by the place where I live. My time working in mountain refuges taught me that the mountains are the place where I belong, and where I hope to return as soon as possible. This is not a romantic idea. It is awareness. I have lived the mountains every day in every season, and I know what it means not to arrive and leave but to stay.
The mountains are not an escape from the city for me. The city feels more like a transition, a temporary space to pass through.

In England the idea of a mountain is very different. Those of us who grew up near the Alps think of mountains in a specific way, often imagining extreme landscapes. Yet every valley and every region has a mountain that is different from all the others in shape, climate, geology and tradition. The highest mountain in the United Kingdom, Ben Nevis, reaches one thousand three hundred and forty five meters. It does not resemble anything at the same altitude in the Italian Alps.

For this reason I try to rebalance myself by discovering the mountains here.

Time

What is the rhythm of your life?

It depends on the day. Because I can organise my work and my time, I am the one who chooses the pace.
A few moments are constant. I practice yoga every morning when I wake up and every evening before going to sleep, and I always walk for at least one hour. Everything else forms itself around these moments, depending on my shifts at the bookshop and the time I need for reading or writing. Reading is part of writing. Without reading there is no writing, and sometimes I also read books I must review or use for articles.
I know I am privileged to have this kind of rhythm.


If you could freeze one moment of your day, what would it be? When do you feel most in your element?

I am not sure. Walking, reading and writing are my natural element, but the places in which they happen make a difference.
Thinking of everyday life, perhaps the moment when I tie my shoes. They are always comfortable and always sporty, and that gesture gives me the feeling of starting something.


What is time well spent for you?

Time in which I remain in the present. Time in which I do not run toward the future or fall back into the past. Time in which I think about where I am, not where I was or where I will be.

Movement

What role does movement play in your life?

My body asks for it and without it I feel incomplete. If I do not move enough during the day, I become irritable and at night I struggle to sleep.
In the past years my habits have changed a lot. During the presentation tour for my novel, which lasted almost eight months, it was difficult to move. Every day I travelled from one city to another by train and left again the morning after. I had no time to climb, and only when I did not have work could I take a short walk before an event. I found this very difficult. I was always moving, yet I felt still.

Moving to a new home and a new country did not help. I needed time to create healthy routines again.
Movement, for me, is not only sport. It is the body in action. I worked as a waitress for many years. It is demanding work, but I loved the sensation of never standing still and feeling my muscles active.

Writing is a static activity, because the mind is the one moving. Yet the body is essential even in literature. Characters have physical presence and the story depends on that.
Movement in all its forms brings me back to the connection between body and mind.


What kind of movement restores order in your mind?

Walking. My thoughts are tied to my feet and I feel a deep connection with them.
During my adolescence and until I was twenty four, I moved around the city by bicycle. After a severe flu I was too weak to ride, so I began walking to work. My bicycle has remained in the courtyard since then.

Every morning I go out to walk. It activates my body and it activates my thoughts. I wear earphones but I never start the music. I do not know why.
There is a route I love. It follows the Mersey, beginning in the city center, and if you walk to the end it is about twelve kilometers there and back. It reaches a park. I meet only people walking their dogs or people running. There are no city noises, only the wind, the water and the boats. Sometimes I can smell the sea.

It is not a forest or a mountain trail, but on the other side of the river the countryside begins, and when the sky is clear you can see the outline of Snowdonia.

I would prefer to be in a forest or on a rocky path. I try to make the best of what I have each day.

Meaning

What does simplifying mean to you - in life, in work, in how you dress?

I am not sure how to answer. It made me think about the life I live and I believe it is already simple. Not by choice, but by nature. I do not need much and I rarely feel envy or frustration for what I cannot have. Most of the time I do not even desire it.
I buy very few clothes. They are plain, simple and practical. I need to feel comfortable in the world. Clean lines, simple shapes, very few prints.
My way of eating is simple as well. I have been vegan for years and I try to follow the seasons, although this is difficult in England. I avoid processed food. I eat mostly vegetables, fruit, legumes and grains.

The greatest form of simplification for me is in writing. I want everyone to understand what I write. Italian is a perfect language for this, because there is always a word that expresses what you need. Simplifying in writing means removing what is not necessary. It means finding the word that carries the meaning without needing decoration.

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If you had to describe your life with one word, what would i be - and why?

Until now, the word would be instinct.

I make choices not with my head or my heart but with my stomach. My writing comes from the same place. I have made many mistakes, but I do not regret my choices. I do not want regrets and I do not want remorse.
Right now the word would be change.

There is a sentence in the book Patria by Fernando Aramburu:
“We try to give life meaning and order, and in the end life does with us whatever it wants.”

It seems simple, but it is not. After reading it, I do not think I suddenly changed my way of looking ahead, but where I once tried to control the future, I gradually let it go. I have goals and a direction, but if the road bends unexpectedly, I have learned to follow it and to feel a little less fear.