SOM
In the dark forest there is a light that illuminates the night. All the stories that inhabit us were born around this initial fire. Books are rays of our atavistic memory. The moment to recover the golden circle of our origins has arrived. We should transcend through collective stories. Let’s recover the power of the tale and the strength of our voice. Let’s redraw the narratives that conform us with imagination and courage. Let us be bodies of letters, free minds and hearts emanating verses. Let us be vibrant Literature, a walking memory and a breath of fire that comes and goes and in a sacred moment becomes a magic reality.
Our commitment to the current world (and also to past and future worlds) has prompted us to revive the original fire through groups of people who join our adventures and write in a collective way to drive away the shadows of our present night. These literary circles generate a safe and respectful intimacy based on listening, empathy, joy and the experience of community. The stories that underlie the collective unconscious emerge becoming living Literature. Our revolution is made with pencil and paper. We are a book that is always open, a blank page with the aim to reveal and be rebel.
SOM, in Catalan language, means We Are. What are we? Where we come from? Where are we going? Our non‐profit civil association was created by the writer Joan Serra Montagut in Mérida (Yucatán, México) on May 21, 2014, the World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. Despite we are rooted in the Yucatán Peninsula and in a very special way also in Catalonia our mission is global because we want the methodology of collective writing to be replicated in many latitudes.
JOAN SERRA MONTAGUT
Having two nationalities (the Spanish and the Mexican one), he was born in Barcelona in 1986 and he lived in Caldes de Montbui until he moved to México in 2011. In 2008 he finished his studies in Journalism at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) receiving the Extraordinary Degree Award for his academic commitment. While he studied he also worked in various local and regional media. In 2009 he collaborated with Centro UNESCO di Firenze through the Leonardo da Vinci grant given by the European Commission and he attended his first international UNESCO meeting on Heritage at the Library of Alexandria.
He collaborated for a few months with Los Patojos (Guatemala) and there the seed of the collective writing began to germinate, consolidating his love for Latina America and, in particular, for the Mayan culture. After working in the Office of the European Parliament in Barcelona with a Robert Schuman scholarship and in the Association of Friends of UAB, his alma mater, among others, he obtained a grant from the Government of Catalonia to work during nine months as a cultural manager of Casal Català de la Península de Yucatán, based in Mérida. He has been involved in this institution more than a decade. In México, he also has worked in the Communication for Development area of the UNESCO Office in Mexico City and as a consultant for the United Nations Program for a Culture of Peace in Chiapas (UNESCO, UNDP, UNICEF and UNODC). He won the National Youth Award in Spain in 2014 in the category of Intercultural Communication for the coordination of Proyecto Ja’ab, that has focused all his energies these last years. He has traveled around the world through this adventure winning international awards (see Sacbé section).
He is deeply committed to the dissemination of the collective writing methodology as a tool for social transformation. He created the platform of SOM Editorial Colectiva to spread it. In addition, he has written a dozen novels in Catalan and Spanish, his two Mother languages.
ENTREVISTA
SOM Editorial Colectiva has collaborated with many artists in our literary journey. The illustrations of this webpage are made by our great friend Manolo Taure.
Thanks a lot for your talent!