SPAIN: After years of working across print, broadcast, and digital media, Venezuelan journalist Amílcar Trejo Mosquera has turned to fiction with the release of his first book, Un día como cualquier otro: Antología de Relatos Cortos (Spanish Edition). The anthology marks a shift from reporting on real-world events to exploring imagined narratives rooted in emotional truth, drawing on stories written over a span of nearly 25 years.
The collection brings together fifteen short stories written between 2001 and 2025. Rather than following a single plot or recurring character, the book presents a mosaic of moments that explore love, betrayal, identity, guilt, and memory. The stories move between the ordinary and the surreal, reflecting the unpredictability of everyday life and the inner conflicts that often remain unspoken.
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Mosquera, a Venezuelan journalist currently living in Spain, has built a career across multiple media formats, including newspapers, digital platforms, radio, television, and digital marketing. He currently works in entertainment journalism for the news website of a streaming service. Despite this professional focus on current affairs and popular culture, he says storytelling has been a lifelong interest that remained largely personal until now.
The anthology includes narratives ranging from emotionally charged encounters in youth to reflections shaped by adult experience. Among the stories are accounts of a kiss that irreversibly alters a friendship, an act of infidelity that leads to personal upheaval, and an elderly man who reveals a violent past while drinking in a rundown bar. Other tales move further into psychological and symbolic territory, including a psychiatrist confronted by his own inner demons and a samurai struggling between honor and guilt.
Written in an intimate and sometimes raw narrative style, the book does not aim to offer moral resolutions. Instead, it places characters at moments of tension or transformation, allowing readers to sit with uncertainty and contradiction. The tone shifts across stories, blending nostalgia, black humour, intrigue, and introspection, while maintaining a focus on the emotional consequences of choice.
In an interview with Transcontinental Times, Amílcar Trejo Mosquera described the book as an attempt to begin something new rather than a calculated career move. He said his primary motivation was to share stories driven by genuine emotion rather than ambition, adding that the decision to publish came after years of hesitation and self-doubt.
He explained that the anthology reflects his interest in how love is shaped by culture, circumstance, and personal history. Rather than presenting idealized relationships, the stories focus on lived realities, where affection coexists with misunderstanding, desire with regret, and connection with loss. This thematic focus, he said, emerged naturally over time rather than through a deliberate conceptual plan.
The long gestation of the book mirrors Mosquera’s own professional journey. While his journalism career required clarity, speed, and factual precision, fiction offered a space to explore ambiguity and emotional depth. Several stories in the anthology were written years apart, capturing different stages of the author’s life and outlook. Read together, they reflect an evolving perspective on identity and human behavior.
Mosquera’s background as a migrant also subtly informs the collection. Although the stories are not explicitly autobiographical, themes of displacement, memory, and reinvention appear throughout. Characters often find themselves at crossroads, forced to confront past decisions or unexpected truths, echoing broader experiences of transition and change.
Asked about advice for aspiring writers, Mosquera emphasized the importance of writing freely in the early stages. He suggested that new writers should focus on getting ideas onto the page without worrying too much about grammar or structure at first, arguing that narrative flow and emotional honesty matter more at the beginning than technical polish. He also stressed the value of reading widely, noting that exposure to different styles and voices helps writers develop confidence and perspective.
He cautioned against expectations of quick recognition or commercial success. According to him, many writers spend years, or even decades, developing their voice before finding a broader audience. Writing, he said, should be approached as a long-term commitment rather than a shortcut to visibility.
A Day Like Any Other, as the English translation of the title suggests, centers on moments that appear ordinary on the surface but carry lasting emotional weight. Through its varied settings and characters, the anthology reflects a belief that even the most routine experiences can become turning points.
With this debut, Mosquera joins a growing number of journalists who are exploring fiction as a parallel form of expression. While it remains to be seen how the book will be received by a wider readership, it represents a personal milestone for an author who has spent years telling other people’s stories and is now sharing his own imaginative worlds.
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