So let's get the work stuff out of the way: my most recent writer credits include Head Writer of the Hulu series "How To Be a Carioca" and Creator of the hit Netflix series "Invisible City" (it made the US top ten!) along with badass director and forever mentor Carlos Saldanha.

Still on the work stuff, I wrote an animated feature for Disney, sequel to a successful franchise, and most recently I started developing an animated series based on an original idea (!!!) also for Disney.

Yes, these are pretty cool credits and I'm very proud of them. But to me, the “how” is way more important than the “what.” So, if I may, let me tell you a little bit about how I got here, in Studio City, LA, where I'm typing this bio at my cozy home with my dog Alef sleeping next to me on the couch.

In 2016, I wrote and directed a musical performed for a daily crowd of 50,000 people at a rock festival in Lisbon, Portugal. We opened the stage for Bruce Springsteen, Queen, Maroon 5, and other mind-blowing headliners.  It was the craziest thing I'd ever done and I had never felt more accomplished. But as I was watching the last performance, I felt something was missing. Not on stage, but in my life.

Back in Brazil, my homeland, I built a solid career with 17 plays, two blockbuster movies, five musicals, the Brazilian version of Ugly Betty, and the most prestigious theater award in the country. But I was also born into a conservative family in one of the most homophobic countries in the world.

Oh, and I'm queer AF.

So in 2017, I left everything behind to start from scratch in NYC without knowing a single person in the US. I started out by teaching musical theatre to kids in the Bronx. Then I wrote, directed and produced my first American play, “The Ideal Obituary” (The Tank, 2018) featured in Time Out. After that, I wrote and produced another play, “Real” (The Tank, 2019) featured in American Theatre Magazine.

Because of that play, I was brought over to Blue Sky Studios (Fox Animation) where I worked as an in-house writer for 2 years. After Blue Sky was shut down, I stayed in NY for a couple of years and moved to LA in June 2024. 

The takeaway from the journey to becoming a writer in the US is that it forced me to embrace my Latin American identity as an artist and my queerness as a person. It taught me how to write from a place of love.  I'm not going to begin a motivational talk here, but through the power of storytelling, I created a completely different version of myself: I beat depression, let go of drugs, healed my relationships and achieved what I thought would be impossible: live a happy life (corny, but true).

And that's what my work is about. Whether it's for Hollywood Studios or people who want to learn.

I created an open-access Writers Club to support professional and aspiring writers and I periodically give e a free talk called “Storysharing” where I explain my process of using personal experiences to write fiction. I'm also a proud volunteer at the Go Project, tutoring underprivileged children with learning disabilities since 2017.

In the meantime, I keep writing and spreading the word: Stories that are told with love, don't just just describe reality. They create it.

Thanks for reading. Got to take Alef for a walk now. :)