Sofianna Paidousi
I've always loved sitting at my computer creating stories…
Fairies, dragons, witches, kings and princesses, all of them mingled in my mind together with Pinocchio or Snow White, making magical puzzles... When I was little, I tried to draw my heroines, spending endless hours in a room full of paintings on the walls, hoping, one day, to become a fashion designer, but my ambidexterity hadn't helped me, even though my parents kept urging me. Maybe because both my father and my grandmother, among others, were also painters. In the end, I did not deal with this area, while my sketches are still hidden in the children's room.
I was born in Chios, an island in the Aegean seα. My father was a lawyer, as was my grandfather, but I, fortunately, or unfortunately, withdrew from that field early on!
Sofianna Paidousi, Photo by © Nikos Kolitsis
I later moved to study in Athens because of…Kapodistrian University. I studied at the Department of Education and Early Childhood Education, which made me especially happy (as well as my folks), as I always loved tender childhood and wanted to offer
a lot to children.
Anyway, this school year (2023-24) I am working in a public kindergarten in the southern suburbs and I live with my family in Athens with two little boys, Leonardo and Ermylos and a Maltese called Charlie, with little ones in between stations in Corfu, Katerini and Chios!
At some point, however, after the University, I had the opportunity to study film at private schools (screenwriting, directing, audio-visual material production) and around 18 I had already written a feature film script as well as corresponding short scripts. Nevertheless, at that time the opportunities in Greece for young creators were not many and my artistic concerns could not be channeled only into a script that would hardly, after all, become a film. So I turned to writing a fairy tale that I could combine my love and need to write (where no one can cut scenes for you, because of a small budget, for example) with my love for children. I studied writing fairy tales and juvenile literature, and playwriting. Later, I specialized in Graphic Design, Static Image Editing, InDesign, Html5 & Java Script Web Development, E-Business & Marketing and Social Media Marketing from the National Kapodistrian University of Athens, as well as in Subtitles, from the Hellenic American Union. However, in the end, I did not deal with the illustration.
Sometime in 2015, turning on the TV and watching the news - which I generally avoid, because it makes me sad -, I started to create my own world, called Fairytales, a magical world where good will always prevail in the end. A world, that will make us a click happier than the real one we lived in then. I started uploading classic fairy tales and excerpts from my own school work." Ice Wonder" and "The Amphimirror" actually started out as two assignments for school and I never expected them to become full blown fairy tales. Back then, I had plenty of time and had written quite a few fairy tales, some in English and uploaded them to online platforms, but there was the issue of illustrations… they didn’t have any, so their value was noticeably limited…
In 2017 a screenplay, I had forgotten that I had written, for a short film in 2008 called, please, "The new generation", it became the occasion of an acquaintance and a film from Katerini's school, with the rest being... history, so far so good...
The script titled “School Trouble 2 – The New Generation”, it was filmed in four versions, with the participation of other schools and took part in various festivals throughout Greece, garnering excellent reviews and registering thousands of views on the internet. All this was the occasion to highlight the rest of my writings, to look for illustrators and perfect them.
Ice Wonder, about diversity and school bullying, was published in 2019 by Ocelotos publications and "The Amphmirror", on the topic of eating habits, in 2021 by Hydroplano Publications.
I recently completed my postgraduate studies at Neapolis Paphos University, in the field of Educational Psychology, which will help me delve deeper into children's souls and the problems they face. In addition, I am trying to perfect my Italian, which I have always liked as a language.
I didn't stop blogging. In the fairytalesbysapaidousi.blogspot.com together with my team, we deal with children's literature in addition to the theater for children, while in 2018 I created thefairytalesforolderkids.blogspot.com about theater and books for adults. Also, in 2019 I created the blogoparfes.blogspot.com dedicated to my first "spiritual" child "Ice Wonder".
During this period I have completed the writing and illustration of the fairy tale "Mirovolos Nios" which deals with a taboo subject faced by young and old. It will be published in 2023 by Book Guru publications. At the same time, I am in the stage of illustrating the fairy tale called"Psychari Street", which deals with how they lived in the 60s and how we live today as well as the big differences between them. I dedicate this book to my father, Dimitrios Paidousis, who is no longer alive.
We live between Athens and Thessaloniki (with intermediate stations and constant changes in Katerini, Corfu and Chios), we have two little boys, Leonardo and Ermylos and a Maltese called Charlie!
