Today we’d like to introduce you to Ronika Merl.

Hi Ronika, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve lived a lot! I grew up in an indigenous mountain tribe in India, on the Kashmir border. I lived a pretty upper-class life in Austria in my teens, then fell in with a bad crowd and spent four years in sex work, being trafficked across the country. Then I uprooted myself, moved to Ireland, where I established my writing career.
It’s been a journey!
What initially got me started was an essay I’d written, which became the first thing to ever be published commercially. I then moved towards film and screenwriting, and never looked back.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a smooth road.

I often speak about the struggles I’ve had as if they happened to some other person (which is a logical thing to do), so sometimes I have to remind myself and ground myself in the reality of it all. It also doesn’t feel real. I worry a lot about being perceived as making it all up, because there’s just so *much* of it. There’s just so much stuff that happened.

There have been so many low points in my life – trigger warning – childhood sexual abuse, prostitution, trafficking, domestic violence, sexual violence. I’ve had my heart broken a million times, have been beaten and hurt in so many different ways.
It’s so weird that I get to sit here and talk to you. It seems so unlikely.
But I am here. I count myself as very blessed to be here.

So, there have been many struggles, it has not been smooth. But I feel like these struggles have their worth. I was left with a voice, and I was left with something to say. And I feel I have an obligation to do that.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a screenwriter, poet, and writer. So I suppose if you’d have to classify what I do, I’d have to say I make words taste good. The thing that has sort of become my speciality over the years, the thing I get hired to write (or fix in other people’s writing) is the human element, the character element. I’ve been hired to write character pieces, or fix characters in other people’s scripts. And I love that aspect of my work. I think life experience teaches you a lot about how humans behave, how they interact, how to write a person who reacts in a realistic way.
I guess that’s the one thing I’ve become really known for among the people who commission me: my profound understanding for character development.

What makes you happy?
Happiness is a fleeting thing. We get to look at it like we look at pebbles at the bottom of a lively mountain stream: waves crashing over the image, light reflecting on the little waves. But if we were to try and pick it up, we’d distort everything, muddy the waters, and it would fade.

It’s a flighty and frilly thing, this happiness.
I find it in the little things, in the tiny mundane moments. A coffee that’s really good. A sunset that’s gorgeous. A painting that came out particularly good. Happiness is small. The smaller the moments are in which we can find it or see it, the better.

Contact Info:

• Website: ronikamerl.com

Image Credits
Shane Robinson