Stories about what lies beneath the surface

Dear Sophia, Have you ever felt like you were being held back? Not openly. Not in a way you can easily point to. But subtly. Through delays. Through silence. Through doors that first open, only to close again without explanation. By now, you know the truth by heart. You know every date. Every sentence. Every contradiction. You know exactly what happened because you did not only live through it, you have also had to explain it a hundred times over. And still, people keep asking you for proof. As though the truth becomes less true the moment someone decides not to acknowledge it. At first, you try to explain everything better. More calmly. More clearly. With more documents, more detail and more patience. You convince yourself that somewhere, there must be a perfect way to phrase it so that everyone will finally understand. But at some point, you realise something. Perhaps they already understand. Perhaps the problem is not that you failed to explain it properly. Perhaps the problem is th...

Dear Sophia, Over the past few days, I've come to a rather unexpected realization. Not while writing SCAMMED: The Inside Story of a Perfect Trap. Not while reflecting on the lawsuit that ultimately became the foundation of this story. And not even while revisiting the real-life scam for my second novel, SCAMMED: The Price of a Broken System - One Letter at a Time. No. It happened during a conversation with Emma. With Yann. With Jonathan. We were trying to answer a simple question: How do you describe SCAMMED? As so often happens, the conversation started with marketing... ...and ended somewhere completely different. Then, one sentence appeared. Every scam has a first sentence. I stared at those words for a few moments. And suddenly, I realized they meant far more than a book. They were true. Because no scam begins with money. It begins with simplicity. With a few ordinary words. Sometimes, just seven. "Hi... I came across your profile." And that'...

Dear Sophia, People are forever talking about the monthly days . Apparently, there is an entire industry dedicated to explaining why women occasionally become emotional. Books. Articles. Podcasts. Tea. Chocolate. Blankets. There is, however, very little literature about the hilarious days . Those curious little moments where life quietly abandons all pretence of being logical. Take yesterday. One organisation kindly informed you that they could not investigate your complaint until another organisation had finished investigating theirs. The other organisation explained that they couldn't possibly begin investigating until the first organisation had concluded theirs. It's rather comforting to know that somewhere in the world two departments are patiently waiting for each other. Like two gentlemen insisting the other should walk through the door first. For eternity. Then came the forms. You completed a form confirming that you wished to submit another form, which would eventually ...