Every week, columnist and journalist Karine Gagnon invites you to a major interview with a notable personality from the Capitale-Nationale.
Children have always been at the heart of Rose-Line Brasset’s life. There were her own, those she took care of as a daycare educator, then, over the past ten years, added all those she involved in the adventures of Juliette, the successful series of which she is the lead. author, and who travels all over the world.
At the time of our meeting, Rose-Line Brasset had just finished the 23e volume of the series Juliettewhich has 800,000 copies sold in eight languages. This is a huge success, even more so when you consider the book market in Quebec.
The author was born and raised in Alma, Lac-Saint-Jean, where her mother was from. His father was from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine. “My father was a bartender at Alma, he was probably one of the only men there who spoke French, English and German.”
Stevens LeBlanc/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
Mr. Brasset learned German during the Second World War, where he was part of the contingent that participated in the liberation of Europe.
When Rose-Line was 10 years old, the family moved to Quebec, where she still lives today.
A dream in the making
One of the happiest days of her life, she says, came when she started school. She quickly learned to read and write, even creating her first stories. Her heroine was called Valérie and was a flight attendant. Many little girls dreamed of doing this job. In Rose-Line’s case, it represented a beautiful way to travel, her father’s dream.
“When I was little, my father, when he took me on his knee, said to me: when you go to Amsterdam, one day, you are going to see this thing, and another thing when you go to London… (…) He loved traveling so much [comme militaire] that he dreamed of leaving again, but never got around to it. He was never able to set foot in Europe again.”
Her daughter therefore made it a point to imagine herself in several countries, convinced that the world would one day open up to her.
Following her instinct, she left home early to become a globetrotter. On the go, she went to the Magdalen Islands, then, around the age of 17, to Florida, by train. Then she passed through South America before landing in Europe.
“I went to join my sister who was a nurse in Switzerland,” she relates, adding that she stayed on the other side of the Atlantic for a few years, doing a thousand jobs to earn a living and settle there. -down. She will notably be a daycare educator.
“I love children so much, their presence around me, I am an affectionate person, and I really enjoyed it, and I do not deny this career. It’s just that one day it wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to write.”
She returned to Quebec in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, with the firm intention of meeting the man of her life, starting a family, and becoming a writer.
“People laughed a little and said to me: it’s not a profession, no one makes a living from writing, and you won’t succeed. But I felt like I had what it took.”
Back to school
The idea of returning to his studies was also on his mind. Having become a mother of two children, she completed her baccalaureate, two certificates and a master’s degree. “It was quite easy, I told my children: we form a pizza with three wedges. We were so tight.”
Then she became a freelance journalist for different magazines and media. This job allowed her, in a way, to reconcile and put to use everything she had learned. She also worked as an assistant producer at Radio-Canada radio.
Stevens LeBlanc/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
With her children, she regularly went on trips, six times a year. “It was non-negotiable,” she recalls.
With the advent of the Internet, there was less and less work for freelance journalists. “I was looking to reinvent myself, and my daughter said, ‘Sit down and write about our travel adventures.’”
Petit miracle
Her writings resulted in a novel, which she printed and shipped to publishing houses. And the miracle happened, she says. This is how Juliette was born, a teenager who travels the world (well, well…). It is also the third name of his daughter at birth, and that of his father’s older sister.
“I often say that Juliette is the sum of all my past experiences. I think that everything predestined me to write Juliette (…) I don’t invent anything, I always base myself on real-life facts,” underlines the woman who is very interested in human relationships, and especially those between parents and children.
The series is aimed at all ages, and each volume includes a travel diary and different information about the destination. She also goes to each place, in order to immerse herself in it. “I store emotions and fill my eyes, I meet a lot of people.”
Rose-Line Brasset does not see the day when she will stop writing. “It’s my means of expression,” she says. As for Juliette, who is a bit like the sum of all the children she loves, her readers will be happy to know that she doesn’t see the end either. We wish her a long life, for the happiness of the children she loves so much.
Not to be missed, Wednesday evening at 8:30 p.m., on MATV (channel 9 (Hélix et illico), 609HD (Illico)), the show Karine’s Notebook about Rose-Line Brasset.
