On Saturday October 17th the book “Capitolina O Poder das Garotas” was launched at the Livraria Cultura from Conjunto Nacional.
The book brings the most read texts on the Capitolina website and some new ones, beyond extra activities to the readers. Our HerCampus team talked to the editor and creator of the site, Sofia Soter.
When did you have the idea of creating Capitolina?
It’s been 2 years since we had the idea, on the second semestre of 2013. We were in a group which discussed art, feminist among others. In this group we’ve started talking about the problems of magazines for teenagers. Then we thought “It’d be nice to have a nicer magazine. And we should make it!” Then my best friends Lorena, Clara and I made it.
How was the feedback?
We’ve received a lot of contacts, commentaries and emails, there are people saying that had never thought in this way and got happy of knowing that someone thought on the same way. We also have a lot of readers who send us messages about their lives because they know we’ll understand their problems.
Do you receive negative comments?
Lots of them. Whe havea comment policy in our website. I read all comments and then I think if they are constructive or aggressive. If the comments are aggressive I don’t take them, and if the person continues with this kind of commenting, I block them. This is my policy, because we need our website to be a safe place for our readers, and we cannot have readers accessing a teen website that reproduces hate speech. This attitude ruins space safety.
How did the book idea come out?
We have thought about doing a celebrative 1-year edition magazine. Do some crowdfunding and then pay for the rest. We also have considered publishing through the publisher I used to work during that time. Thus, some publishers got in contact with us. We were really divided between, so we chose to launch through Seguinte because their plan aligned very well among ours. Their team is filled with women that understood what we wanted e gave us very good ideas, too. It was a change process very productive.
What are Capitolina’s future plans?
We want one book more, so that in this edition we called it Volume 1. It is like a celebrative edition for the first anniversary of the magazine, then we have planned a second one for the 2-year anniversary of Capitolina. The website is getting bigger. Before we used to have two posts a day, and now we have three! There are several experts in several areas of knowledge and we are expanding the audiovisual session of the website. So now we are investing in a website everytime better.
We have also asked some Capitolinas about which books are they in love with right now! Check their answers out!
Sofia Soter – A História Secreta, Dora Tartt
Caroline Stary – Neuromancer, William Gibson
Dora – Café-da-manhã dos Campeões, Kurt Vonnegut
Rebecca – Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Natália Lobo – O Segundo Sexo, Simone de Beauvoir
Sofia Brayner – O Grande Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald
Laura Miranda – Feliz Ano Velho, Marcelo Rubens Paiva