When her grandfather died a year later, the father returned and moved Moderno and her mother back to the Azores, where they lived in Angra do Heroísmo.

Missing her friends and family in France, Moderno spent hours in her room writing poetry, an activity her father scorned.

Two years later, in 1885, she produced A ti (To You) in the Almanaque Luso-Brasileiro de Lembranças (Portuguese-Brazilian Almanac of Souvenirs), a major literary vehicle for Brazilian and Portuguese writers until 1932, in which Moderno published frequently until 1889.

[3] She was the first woman to enroll in high school in the Azores and attended the Lyceum Antero de Quental attached to the Convent of Grace (Portuguese: Convento da Graça).

[4][5][6] In 1886, she completed the book Aspirações (Aspirations), a collection of French and Portuguese verses, which garnered praise from Camilo Castelo Branco.

[7] Suffering from migraines, her father recommended cold compresses, but headstrong Moderno, caused a scandal by cutting off her hair.

[10] In November 1888, Moderno founded the magazine Recreio das Salas (Recreation of the Salon) which published works from Portuguese literary figures.

[11] That same year, she began a courtship by correspondence with the intellectual, Joaquim de Araújo, but made it very clear to him that she was not an adherent to the Victorian values of women's domesticity.

Her literary output declined as she had to work to pay off his obligations[14] and she moved into the home of a friend, Maria Emília Borges de Medeiros.

[15] In 1901, she produced Açores, pessoas e coisas (Azores, people and things) and the following year founded the journal A Folha (The Leaf), which she published among other items from the business Tipografia A. Moderno.