Swenglish is now out!

Swenglish - a journey through everyday life is now out for real and you can read the prologue on Amazon.

And if you like it you can get your own copy. Also available in Kindle edition.

If you live in the Brighton area, Swenglish is for sale in City Books. Or contact me for a signed copy.


FOR MORE INFO ABOUT THE SWENGLISH-PROJECT PLEASE CLICK HERE

FOLLOW SWENGLISH ON FACEBOOK

Swenglish will be out in 2015!

My only resolution for 2015 is to publish the Swenglish book in English in England and have a launch party in Brighton.

It will happen. The cover is already on its way. Design: Sky Apperley.

"As a portrait of two countries the book is interesting enough. The Swedish find the English habit of carpeting toilets to be disgusting. And, despite Sweden having colder temperatures, Sweden is warmer than England, since our houses tend to be draughty and badly insulated. However, the thing I like most was the way the book sketched its characters." - James Burt has written a personal review. Click here to read it.

PÅ SVENSKA

My Writing Year 2013 and Plans for 2014

It' been an overwhelming year in many ways. Not least because I'm mainly writing in Swedish again. And I happen to live in Sweden. I haven't quite accepted it yet. I keep telling myself that nothing is forever and that I'm a citizen of the world and all that ...

I still have three main projects going on:

SWENGLISH 

The project is finished and I've written the book. It's just the whole publishing business left to deal with.

REPLACING ANGEL/UNDER THE LIP

Same, same but different. This novel has been finished forever and I haven't given up on the UK market, but at the moment I'm finishing the translation into Swedish and will start to approach Swedish publishers again.

POETRY

And then there's poetry. Performance poetry. If it wasn't for the poetry I would tear my hair and slit my wrists. Poetry keeps me on track. Poetry gets me out of the house. Poetry makes me friends. This year I took part in the National Slam Championship in Malmö and since then I've been performing regularly at festivals, slams, open mics and other random events. I also tried my luck as a "metaphor wrestler". (Pictured).

The reason I love performance poetry so much is that it's immediate and democratic. Anyone can do anything; you can write a poem today and throw it on the world tomorrow. The novel writing can be soul destroying in comparison as it involves a lot of waiting.

So. The future. In 2014 I will do everything I can to get SWENGLISH published and I will try equally hard to get REPLACING ANGEL out there. And I will step up on every stage and fill every page. Am working on some promising collaborations. Watch out!

I also got a an author page on Facebook now. Please like if you haven't already!

Happy new year all readers!

PÅ SVENSKA

Nowhere To Go

Before I started my Swenglish project and hit the road, I had a massive clear out, getting rid of clothes, books and CDs, but I just couldn't give away books that were signed by the author. One of those books were Ben Graham's Nowhere To Go.

When I unpacked my few belongings in my new home in Gothenburg, the title Nowhere To Go leapt out at me, making me a bit sad. For the first time in my life I live on my own, but am far from settled. Instead of dealing with stuff like a blocked drain and a dead basil plant, I'm escaping into the world of fiction. Nowhere To Go is fiction but I suspect it is close to the author's own experience of being a bit of a drop-out from society.

Reading Nowhere to Go made me think of Kerouac's On the Road with the romantic notion of travelling and taking drugs and just hanging around, trying to get by. But this book feels closer to home. The road trip takes place in Eastern Europe and all the characters are English working class with fantastic Yorkshire accents. Vic, the narrator, is more of an observer than a participant and I especially love his walk through Prague one hung-over morning.

It's a short book, more of a novella but I think that's a strength. Instead of focusing on life back in "boring Britain" the story is basically the trip to Prague and back. Vic's reflections are thoughtful and poetic, showing the gap between the beatniks and "the neatniks". The book is worth reading alone for the brilliant description of a night out playing with national stereotypes  "France glowers over, sipping a cognac at the bar, an elegant femme on his arm, while Britain sulks on the sidelines."

I can't get enough of road trip romanticising, but perhaps it isn't the kind of book I should be reading right now. I should appreciate that I'm in a clean, comfortable and warm flat instead of "being transported in a metal ice box through a bleak inhospitable landscape on a road trip to nowhere". However I will finish with another quote from the book that kind of describe my life in general: "this temporary resting place on the outskirts of adventure". To read more about what I'm up to check out my Swenglish blog.

Nowhere To Go was originally written in 1998, but published in 2010. To read more about the book and the author visit his blog: http://bleedingcheek.wordpress.com/

The Swenglish Project is going to be a Documentary

For a whole week I've been followed by a film maker from Brighton & Hove Community TV that is making a documentary about my Swenglish project.  

Read more here.

PÅ SVENSKA

On the Road in Sweden and England

I've been on the road for most of the year because of my Swenglish project. Now I've only got a week and a half left and still don't know where to settle, perhaps I'll keep moving back and forth between Sweden and England for the rest of my life ...

The other day I watched On the Road (based on Jack Kerouac's classic novel) with Swenglish host number 29. Even though the book is better of course, I was positively surprised by the film. And I was reminded of one of the reasons why I started to write ... The main character Sal Paradise says:

“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” 

When I grew up I was a very quiet and shy girl, but in my teens I was drawn to the so-called mad people described in the book, and I loved and still love reading books about mousy people following more colourful people on great adventures. Apart from Sal Paradise following Dean Moriarty in On the Road, I loved reading about Patrick Keane following Will Savage  in Jay McInerney’s The Last of the Savages.

I would appreciate if someone could recommend books where mousy girls follow colourful women on great adventures. In my debut novel ("Punk industrial hard rocker with attitude") the main character Amanda kind of follows her older friend Kim, and I've realised that most of the stuff I write is based on this notion of meeting a person that will bring some danger into your life and changing it.   

TO FOLLOW MY SWENGLISH JOURNEY PLEASE CLICK HERE

Rattle Tales Anthology Out Now

Today I found it hard to get out of bed because I was reading the brilliant Rattle Tales anthology featuring stories from very fine writers such as Starlings author Erinna Mettler, and yes my story Playing Horse is in there too.

This week I'm having a break from my Swenglish project, so was happy I could go along to the Rattle Tales event in the Brighton Fringe Festival. What I like best about the event is that it's interactive, the audience is allowed to ask questions the author has to answer on the spot. We were treated to stories about insect sex, pear trees, catholic schools, human bears, modern plague and persuasive sellers.

I don't know if I'm as persuasive as the characters in Susanna Quinn's story but the Rattle Tales anthology is on sale here.

To follow my Swenglish adventure please click here.

Introducing Swenglish

I've created a new blog for my 2012 Swenglish-project.

Please check it out here: http://swenglish2012.blogspot.com/

(I'll still use this blog, Living Lou, to write about other topics.)

2012

2012 doesn't have a face yet
I don't know which face to show
but I am facing this year in my own way

2012 is the Swenglish year
the year I'm going to work out
where I want to live and what I want to do

who I want to be even.

(more info about Swenglish to follow)