5 Questions with Marija Bulatovic

Born in Yugoslavia in the 1970s, Marija Bulatovic, along with her parents, immigrated to the U.S. in the 1990s just ahead of the 1990s Yugoslav wars and the breakup of the country.  An accomplished business professional with years of experience driving enterprise business with Fortune 500 companies, Bulatovic graduated from Colgate University. Marija Bulatovic lives in Seattle with her husband and son.

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Q: What’s inside the mind of a memoir author?

A: A memoir author sets out to accomplish a combination of goals: to paint a picture of a time and place that have passed or have changed, to bring characters to life again, to tell a story that’s very personal and to bring all of this together in a meaningful but amusing way to her readers.

Q: Tell us why readers should buy FANTASTICAL: Tales of Bears, Beer and Haemophilia.  

A: FANTASTICAL is a magical, whimsical memoir about living life in full color.  It’s an engaging set of 13 stories that take readers on a wild journey through 1980’s Yugoslavia, a time and place that no longer exist but come alive in these stories.  FANTASTICAL amuses and transports readers to a surreal dimension where “socialist meets gypsy Woody Allen,” where strange happening abound, and magic, mystery, dark humor and curiosity thrive.

Q: What makes a good memoir?

A: A good memoir is more than just recounting of historical records.  It’s a work of passion, part tribute, part love letter to a time, place and people that the author holds dear.  At the same time, it can’t be narcissistic.  Its charm is to bring all of those elements together and engage, involve, amuse and transport the reader into another world.

Q: What is a regular writing day like for you?

A: I didn’t set out to become an author and have spent 15 years in hi-tech.  However, once I started writing FANTASTICAL the stories came very easily to me; I was delighted to wake up every day and write.  My goal was to write a story a day for 25 days and this was easily achieved since I couldn’t wait share these stories with the broader audience.

Now that FANTASTICAL is out, I feel I have more books in me and have already written a children’s book and am starting to map out a few other book projects.  While unexpected, I feel this could turn into a second and very rewarding career.

Q: What do you find most rewarding about being an author?

A: I love the process of writing and bringing topics that I’m personally passionate about to the broader audience.  I also love the execution process, from taking the raw material to shaping it through editing, illustrating, layout, etc. into stories my audience can enjoy and feel close to.