As a part of the CELA jobshadowing program, I spent seven days in Torino, Italy during the end of October of 2025. Exactly from the 20th to the 26th. 

The visit was hosted by the amazing team of Scuola Holden. I choose this team and this period because I was very interested in learning how a big writing school like Scuola Holden works during the opening of their major courses.

I teach in Escuela de Escritores, in Madrid, and I wanted to check firsthand if our schools share the same similarities that our countries share. And in those aspect we act and think different, maybe I can find something interesting to apply on my daily work with my students.

That’s why I selected this period of the year. For those who teach and work in a creative writing school, autumn is the real beginning of the year. The expectations and illusion that you can see on a school like ours during these days is not comparable to any other time of the year. And I wanted to experiment that from the first row.

The Scuola Holden team was welcoming and was whiling to share and explain everything that my curiosity found interesting. Moreover, since I speak Italian, I can also attend some of the opening lessons for the students.

To be concrete: During the visit, two meetings were held with coordinators from the "General Store" department (courses for those over 30). This included observing a departmental meeting. Attendance also included the introductory sessions for "Academy" and "Daimon" (three- and two-year university-level courses, respectively, for those under 30), led by their respective directors, as well as a meeting with CELA writer Rafaelle Cataldo to finalize details regarding his participation in the Eñe Festival the very next month.

As a teacher and staff of Escuela de Escritores, the meetings with the different people in charge of Scuola Holden give me an open view of the work Scuola Holden carries on. They have a methodological method that is similar that the one we use in Madrid, but in some concrete courses they apply it in a different way, which was very enriching to me.

Back in Madrid, I had the opportunity to share all my learning experiences with my colleges. In fact, we are now presenting a weekend course that was inspiring by my jobshadowing in Torino.

On a personal note, the meeting with the Italian author Rafaelle Cataldo and the two opening sessions were very inspiring to me since I am also a writer myself. I spend a very nice evening with Rafaelle talking about writing and the state of queer literature in Italy.

I was able to practice my Italian and spent some evenings by my own just exploring the vast cultural options that Torino provides. I got lost into museums and enjoy the great gastronomy of the city.

To conclude, the jobshadowing has been enriching at different levels for me and for Escuela de Escritores. I was able to grow as a teacher, as a writer and also as a person.