WHO IS CRISTINA BURDUJA?
Writer of Poetry, Prose and Plays with more than 20 years of commitment to wordsmithing.
I began writing when I was ten.
In seventh grade, I got a short story published in a local newspaper. In eighth grade, I had a breakthrough moment when I read a story I had written in class and everyone applauded at the end. I was surprised, and it made me wonder.
I can't say I treated writing as something serious or un-serious – I didn't really think about it much. I just wrote from time to time and enjoyed it. That hasn’t changed much. I still enjoy it, except now I take it seriously because I know how powerful it can be. A few years back, I posted a poem online, "The End of Seeking." Soon after, I received a message saying, "Thank you for touching my heart with your poetry." And there it was, my purpose fulfilled.
I studied Journalism as a BA and decided once and for all that journalism had nothing to do with creative writing. Then, I completed an MFA in Creative Writing, where I learned how to write theatre.
By the time I self-published my first poetry collection, The Paths We Travel Alone, in 2022, I had written hundreds of poems. During the pandemic, I wrote one or two poems per day for a whole year. Writing poetry comes easily to me.
On the other hand, my first novel, The Paper Boat, proved to be hard work. It taught me discipline, structure and commitment, but I knew it had to be written. No one else could write it, and I knew that if I didn't, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
Now that I have finished editing the last chapter of The Paper Boat, I am already working on my second novel (a sci-fi story) and my second book of poetry while trimming my fifth play. And who knows... Maybe when I finish all of these projects, I'll discover that I want to become a marine biologist next. But even if I do, I don't think I'll ever stop writing.