Costas

I was born in Paphos in 1977, with roots in Famagusta and Kyrenia. I studied Education Sciences at the University of Cyprus and spent eleven years in a primary school classroom. During the years I was “teaching,” I learned a lot from my students. Somewhere around the age of 25, I decided to learn to play the guitar, with one initial goal: to play Metallica songs. But by my second lesson, I was already telling my teacher: “I still want to learn guitar so I can play Metallica. But I also want to learn so I can write songs of my own.” For a long time, I tried. I would write something on the guitar and try to sing over it, find a melody, turn it into a song. I couldn’t do it. Until, five or six years later, I finally managed to complete my first song. “Skinothetis.” Then, little by little, more ideas started coming. And I managed to turn some of them into songs. I’m not even sure myself exactly how it happened, but four years later I was holding an album with seven songs in my hands - all with music and lyrics of my own! After the album, I completed a few more songs, while quite a few others are still waiting for their time to come. At the same time, I felt the desire to write a book - a fairy tale for primary school children. And one Friday, while I was driving, the idea came to me. I was thinking about how it was Friday and about a familiar Greek saying: “Sweet little Friday, sugar and honey.” And then a thought crossed my mind: “Imagine if the days knew how we felt about them. How would poor Monday feel?” And somewhere around there, I decided to write a fairy tale about Monday. After all, nobody loves her! But when I started writing, the story wasn’t working. I needed help. Someone else to tell Monday’s story. So in came Grandpa, to tell the story, and his grandson Jason, to listen. Perfect. My hands were free. We were off to a great start. What I hadn’t counted on was Grandpa and Jason starting to do whatever they pleased. The conversations changed. The story went somewhere else. What it had to say grew deeper. What’s going on here? I set out to go from Paphos to Limassol, and these two are taking me there via Troodos! And as if all that wasn’t enough, suddenly... God and Monday join the conversation and raise the bar. And somehow, a fairy tale that began as a story for primary school children became a fairy tale for children young and old.