To me, paper and writing have always meant the world. A world conserving the wisdom of mankind, a timeless sphere for creativity. Writing is an unparalleled way of creating. Writing is the experience of being beyound time. For me, it is as if paper had a soul, inhaling thoughts and ideas and giving them a form. The Bartleby is a magazine that celebrates writing and sketching and the minds who do it which shape our culture. I also present carefully curated items for paper lovers and focus on writing and travelling, a combination by which we understand the culture/s around us. And I am sure that it is important to celebrate writing and paper culture offline and online. Digital paths give kindred spirits a quick and vivid way to connect with each other.
As an author, I appreciate working at different places. In a train, at a cafe, in a hotel room or in a park. I have been writing for about 20 years as freelance journalist, revealing the experiences of many different people like confiseurs, travel entrepreneurs, authors, or an ESA astronaut. A unique process connects every story, every person I talk to for me: writing down their words. My texts are published on websites, in brochures, newspapers and magazines. Some others lay in my desk, hidden from the world.
I studied Philosophy and English Literature (M.A.) in Hannover, Germany, and Zurich, Switzerland (1996-2002).
Why Bartleby? The name of this site is a tribute to Herman Melville’s Bartleby The Scrivener. Melville wrote it in 1853, but in many aspects it is a modern piece. Bartleby, that pale and reluctant clerk in a notary’s office at Wall Street, starts to refuse his monotonous work as a copyist. Nevertheless he doesn’t leave the scenery, the office with its rustle of paper. Bartleby is a ghostly figure in a changing world. We don’t live in Melville’s times, and we don’t catch a first glimpse of emerging markets. But paper and ink have kept their timeless secret. And more than ever, we need some spheres and minds insisting on paper and ink.
I live in Berlin, Germany with my husband and our two kids.