About

Contact: fmattos1@icloud.com

In 2006 Fernando Mattos crash-landed into an American middle school without knowing any English. Nada. But he had been used to challenges long before then. For starters, he was born in Brazil in 1992 with cerebral palsy due to a loss of oxygen during birth.

CP affected his upper and lower body movements, as well as his speech, but not his will to study, work and write.

Many schools in Rio rejected Fernando due to his condition, but his parents never gave up on searching. Instead of hiding Fernando from the world, they pushed him to become the best he could be. In school, he had to learn the ins and outs of a typewriter in order to do his classwork. It is as if the art of typing always pursued him.

Even if he still types with only two fingers, almost 20 years later.

Fernando arrived in the U.S as a teenager. He had missed one entire semester due to the different school calendars in both hemispheres. In the following five months, he managed to learn English, pass all state exams and earn a straight-A report card. At graduation, he received the Presidential Award for his school efforts.

After high school, he went to college for journalism and film, and later completed a master’s in film production. Today he works for Wellstar Health System, one of the largest health organizations in the southeast, where he produces content for their social platforms.

His passion for writing started when he was 10 with short stories and family trip diaries. In his junior year of high school, he won his first contest prize – a $15 check! Definitely getting those big bucks early on, you see.

He became editor-in-chief of the school literary magazine and, shortly after, began writing short screenplays. Writing short stories in any format has always been his favorite thing to do.

HeI enjoys reading all genres (all the way from The Long Goodbye and Rebecca to The Notebook, The Fault in our Stars, The Kite Runner and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close), but as you might have deduced by most of the titles, he’s a hopeless romantic. He also has a love for the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez. When not writing, reading or watching movies, he enjoys following motorsports – a passion he’s had since he was little. He also participates in go-kart and eSports racing leagues, where he feels closer to his favorite sport. Someday, he hopes to use his racing passion in a story!

Fernando’s debut novel, The Typewriter Boy, is loosely based on his story and inspired by the journeys of other immigrants like him seeking a better life in America. For Antonio, the main character, the United States may be the first place where he can be independent, despite his cerebral palsy. But independence never comes easy.