true 2008-12-27T10:04:47Z Mayra Dias Gomes was born on December 15, 1987 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her father, Dias Gomes, was an acclaimed dramaturg and soap-opera writer. He is the only Brazilian dramaturg ever to win a Golden Palm in Cannes. Her mother, Bernadeth Lyzio, is an actress and surfer. Godchild of applauded writers Jorge Amado and Zélia Gattai, Mayra has four siblings: the singer, songwriter, poet and musician Denise Emmer, the drummer Alfredo Dias Gomes, the trumpetist Guilherme Dias Gomes and Luana, still in school. Mayra was born and raised in a world of literature, cinema, theater, music and television - what always encouraged her to participate in that universe. Her childhood summarizes to memories of quick-change rooms, television studios and events at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, where her father was a member. She studied in the American School of Rio de Janeiro and for a while was a pupil at Tablado, a well known school of actors in Rio de Janeiro. In 1999, when she was 11 years old, a tragic accident took the father away. A few years later, still traumatized with the loss, Mayra spent a season road-tripping through the USA with her mom and learning about different cultures. She passed through the Wild West ghost town of Virginia City, Montana and followed to Utah, where she lived for some weeks under the Mormon customs. Her next stop was the city of Albuquerque in New Mexico, where she stayed in a yurt in the middle of the woods. San Francisco, next on the list, introduced her to the world of bands like The Doors, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin. With a relative in town, Mayra stayed at the legendary Haight Street and took more theater classes. When New Year's came, she headed to Seattle, where she stayed at the same building where two producers of Sub-Pop lived. There, still at young age, she encountered grunge. Back to Brazil with rock'n'roll already running through her veins, Mayra tried to start a band while having singing and guitar lessons. Paralyzed with a fear of audience and stage - which she tried to correct with the theater classes - she gave up on the idea. At the age of 15 she was expelled from the school in which the studied, and headed to life, finding herself submerse at the underground rock scenes of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Mayra then started to write rock and movie columns to alternative sites such as Acid Girls and Subfuzz. At the mid-term of obsessive passions, traumas and drugs, while inspired by Charles Baudelaire's "The Flowers of Evil", she wrote her first novel, "Fugalaça", finished at the age of 17 and released at 19 by Editora Record. With less then one month of release, the book had already caused controversy, been in the cover of many newspapers, and provoqued comparassions to the book of Christianne Vera Felscherinow, "Christiane F.", published in the 80's. 2007 brought her to the eye of the media and led her to write articles for magazines such as Teen Vogue. She has posed for male-magazine VIP, and was a guest at various TV shows, including the MTV Debate. But that wasn't the only live discussion that this polemic writer participated in. Her appearances include Brazil's biggest book fair and a debate about the new generation in literature, at Abril. Mayra just published her second novel, "Mil e Uma Noites de Silêncio", which is on sale all over Brazil. After almost three years working as a music reporter, she also turned into a biweekly columnist at Folha de São Paulo, the biggest newspaper in her country. In the process of becoming a rock’n’roll writer, or something close to that, she has interviewed people such as Marilyn Manson, Ginger, The New York Dolls, L.A. Guns, Towers of London, Avanged Sevenfold, The Used, Jonathan Shaw, Eugene Hütz, Bastardz, Vampiros e Piratas, Serguei, Marco Hietala, 69 Eyes, No Direction, Simple Plan, Lemmy Kilminster, and many others. In 2009, she became a Latin American correspondent for Spin Earth and started reporting to MTV Brasil. In her column on TV, she talks about cool new books and makes sure to encourage young people to read. Recently, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland invited Mayra and other three music professionals to travel to Helsinki to learn about the heavy metal scene of the country. Her program incuded meetings at record labels, agencies, export associations, interviews with musicians, and the coverage of Tuska Open Air Metal Festival. Musicians she interviewed include H.I.M.'s Ville Valo and 69 Eyes' Jyrki. 2008-12-27T10:04:08Z fb714ddcdebf86c7d92de4fdc32b60333d67592a mayradiasgomes@gmail.com 503 true -22.9035 -43.2096 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil mayradiasgomes Mayra Dias Gomes true 2 1d43ba509b4e70a8d505e99aa1d25b4285e3f63c 2009-07-18T19:26:45Z