Presentation of Maria Kassimova-Moisset’s book “Close Encounters with Mixed Feelings”

March 28, 2018; 7 PM;

“Sofia” Gallery

Presentation of Maria Kassimova-Moisset’s book “Close Encounters with Mixed Feelings”

Free registration for the event HERE

Special guest: Maria Kassimova-Moisset

“Close encounters with mixed feelings” do not fit into a particular genre. It is neither a novel nor a documentary, nor an autobiography. The stories collected in it are different, but incompatible only at a first sight. These are journalistic articles, essays and portraits published in various media over the past ten years. Equally, individual footnotes after each text explain the context, the story, or the public appearances of those articles. Honestly and very personally.

This book is an attempt to break out of journalistic anonymity. It’s a story about both sides of a coin, as a positive and negative in photography, as performances and painful rehearsals before. The book about the visible, the public and the invisible, painfully intimate.

“Close Encounters with Mixed Feelings” is a puzzle of stories that everybody stacks in his emotional memory. They look at the time, at the human relations, fears and dreams … Little stories about life. ”

Georgi Toshev

Maria Kassimova-Moisset was born on 5.10.1969 in Sofia. She graduated from the 105th Italian Language School and the Bulgarian Philology at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She has always made her living as a journalist – in her student years she has collaborated in various newspapers and magazines, she was one of the leading hosts of the popular TV program Formula 5 at the end of the 1980. She worked as a reporter in other TV formats. Her career as a professional reporter begins in the journalistic department of the Standard newspaper, where she covers subjects such as theater, cinema and music. As a freelancer Maria was part of the team of various medias – among them 24-hour daily, Sega daily, and Democracy newspapers. She worked as executive editor for “Edno” lifestyle magazine and then as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of magazine ELLE Bulgaria. She was also editor-in-chief of Capital LIGHT and one of the founders and only editor-in-chief of  HE?R magazine – the first magazine for business women in Bulgaria. Since 2010 he has been working as a freelancer for various media, including magazines Amica, MAX, Bravacasa, Manager, bTV’s “Before Lunch” program. Now she continues to contribute for different Bulgarian websites such as Ploshtadslaveikov.com, webcafe.bg, Sofialive and others.

Maria is a certified business and social etiquette consultant and a diplomatic protocol coach from specialized schools in London and Brussels and she leads trainings on these subjects in Bulgaria and abroad. She speaks six languages, not all equally well, as she keeps herself clear. It is quite interesting also that she has some more diplomas – for a waiter and a chef, for a life-guard  on the beach and for a teacher of Bulgarian language and literature.

Maria currently lives out of Bulgaria with her husband but continues to keep track of what happens there and is one of the most popular journalists in the country right now.

“Close Encounters with Mixed Feelings” is her first book.