Best-selling author Filipa Fonseca Silva shares her winding creative path: listening to her own voice despite “helpful” discouragement, practicing flexible devotion to her craft, and building resilience while juggling motherhood and a career.
Filipa Fonseca Silva is a bestselling Portuguese author, activist, and co-founder of the Women Writers Club. Her novels — including Thirtysomething, O Elevador, and E se eu morrer amanhã? — have made her one of the most widely read contemporary voices in Portugal, with film and TV adaptations already underway. In her CreativeMornings Lisbon talk, Filipa traces a creative path that began before she could write — inventing stories from picture books as a child — and follows it through rejection, self-doubt, brutal editorial feedback, and the deep, abiding peace she finds whenever she sits down to write. She speaks honestly about what it means to show up for your work not because it’s easy, but because it’s the thing that won’t leave you alone.
About the speaker
Filipa Fonseca Silva was born in Barreiro, studied Communication at Universidade Católica, then sharpened her words as an advertising copywriter while she waited for the right moment — and the right signs — to take the leap as a novelist, her ultimate dream. When the stars aligned, she committed herself to writing in every free moment — lunch hours, in between her children's naptime, in stolen minutes.
More than ten books later, Felipa has proven that your path is something you cannot avoid as it always calls you back to it.
Her debut novel, Thirty Something — Nothing's How We Dreamed it Would Be (2011), broke barriers as the first Portuguese book in Amazon's Top 100, catapulting her onto the international scene. Since then, she's released more than 10 books—novels, short stories, and children's literature—including bestsellers, The Elevator, and What if I Die Tomorrow?
Known for sharp, soul-stirring prose, Filipa is one of Portugal's most adapted authors for film, with three works in development for screen. A feminist, environmentalist, and founder of the first Women Writers' Club, she writes fearlessly about modern life and timeless human struggles.
Her latest novel comes out this March, The Woman Behind the Wall, inspired by a true story.
Her website: https://filipafonsecasilva.com
Follow her here: https://www.instagram.com/filipafonsecasilva
Clube das Mulheres Escritoras: https://www.instagram.com/clubedasmulheresescritoras
📚 She will have copies of her book to purchase with cash.
Favorite quotes from this talk
Hosted by
Impact Hub Penha de França
Rua Neves Ferreira, 13, "The Impact Hall" [Ground Floor]
Lisbon, Portugal 1170-070
Date
Partners
Impact Hub Penha de França
Pastelaria Versailles
A Flor da Selva
Anomaly Online Vintage
The Salute Guide
People of Lisbon
351 Startup Association
Volunteer Prabha Rathinasabapathy
Volunteer Pedro Rocha
Host Truth W. Hawk
Social Media Designer Eoin Dixon Murphy
Volunteer Laura Elisa Rosato
Photographer Daiane Eloisa
Videographer Diogo Correia
Volunteer Mari Leva
