In the dawn of the digital era, the whirl of 16 mm film reels and the hum of early computers were the sounds of my school years. I studied Film and Media Technology. I took a course in screenplay writing and on the day of my final exams I landed a job at the Central Bank. I was hired to write corporate educational screenplays.

With a passion for storytelling and a curious spirit, I welcomed the Apple IIe into my life in 1981—a beacon of creativity with its modest 16KB memory. I had to take out a substantial loan to be able to buy that first computer. It wasn’t just a machine; it was my gateway to the modern world of writing: word processing. My fingers leaped across its keys, building narratives that had to capture the readers’ imagination. One such story captured the hearts of many, earning the title of Best Screenplay in 1982. Though it never graced the silver screen, this early recognition was an persuasion to continue writing.

With the windfall from that award, I ventured into the realm of short film production. Together with friends from filmschool, we shot a 16mm film on location over many weekends. We showed the result to the local Filmfund and a producer called with the project of a new short film. Which led to a third one… I got assignments for doctoring for screenplays. Each project was a challenge where I honed my craft. These formative experiences led me to the helm of a burgeoning video company, where the art of visual storytelling became my trade. The camera lens became my eye, capturing the essence of tales untold and screenplays for corporate videos my specialty.

One of my professors offered me the director’s chair at a new television show, and I of course accepted. That show flourished for three years. I started my studies to go into journalism but had avoided that for many years. When a new business-oriented television station was announced, I thought I should not miss that opportunity. The transition was seamless, my previous experiences lending themselves to the fast-paced world of news. As I specialized in technology and science, I traveled the world visiting many high-tech companies in Europe and the US. The job offered a new vantage point and certainly showed me what goes on in boardrooms, inspiring new stories.

The allure of fiction was irresistible. I returned to the director’s seat, blocking, storyboarding, and guiding a large cast of actors and scripts where I brought to life over 550 episodes of Belgium’s most beloved soap series, and a few episodes of thehighest scoring detective- series. Amidst this, I breathed life into “NONA”, a short film under the auspices of Stephen King’s Dollar Baby program and some funding from the Film Fund. NONA’s journey across the globe, touching hearts in over 50 cities, was a quite a success.

Throughout these years, the dream of authorship never faded. All these years I made notes for stories, gathering documentation, and making summaries for ideas, and drafts of novels. My tastes in reading is not always mainstream -to say the least- I like to read surprising stories, in emotional depth, plots, unusual characters, and a special writing style. A novel penned in my native Dutch, praised as a masterpiece, found no home on bookstore shelves—a bitter pill that taught me resilience. I kept rewriting it for many, many years and ultimately rewrote the whole book, receiving again accolades, but finding no publisher. Undeterred, I turned to the English language, where a screenplay of mine was lauded in Paris, though it, too, faced the hurdles of production.

In my study I am surrounded by books, some are five hundred years old, others a few hundred, and most are new. Each book is a door to another world, each page a journey. My collection, though modest, is a treasure trove of first editions and rare finds, from the Brontë sisters to Stephen King. The art of bookbinding has become a meditative practice for me, a way to honor the craft that has given me so much. I enjoy making boxes for the most precious of my books.

As I wrote the lines of “The Heart of Lemuria,” my first adventure in English literature, I was reminded that writing, much like life, is an expedition of discovery. Each story is a layer upon layer of meaning, pushing the story to its conclusion. And so, I continue, driven by the same passion that guided me to that Apple IIe all those years ago, eager to see where this next chapter will lead.