Monday, March 21, 2011

The Girl Who Married a Werewolf

This is something I've been wanting to do for a while: A collection of Swedish folktales translated into English. I know there are some books on Scandinavian folklore out there already, but they're either pretty analytical or mistakingly collecting stories written by Scandinavian authors. While said stories take inspiration from folktales, they're not the real deal. One book called "Swedish Folktales" is actually a collection of fairy tales, written by various Swedish authors in the early 1900's. The big draw of this book is not the stories themselves, but the illustrations by Swedish artist John Bauer, so do look it up.

 

My little book "The Girl Who Married a Werewolf, and Other Creepy Folktales From Sweden", however, IS the real deal. Most of the folktales are pretty creepy, so I decided to make this fact the theme of the whole book. I was introduced to local folktales by my grannie Ebba, who may have thought she'd scare me out of my wits with her tales of trolls and grumpy brownies. Instead I was fascinated, and when I learned to read I went out I got myself an even larger dose of scary folklore.
This book, like my other books, was published through Lulu. So far I’m very happy with their services, though I can’t say that I’m rolling in profits from my literary ventures. But then, very few self-published authors are. I’m looking into the ebook trade now, trying to get to grips with how to better get my stuff out there. It’s not just about making money off my work –I really want people to read it. Then they can go off hating or enjoying it as they will.




There are 17 illustrated stories in all, with a little introduction covering the structure and purpose of the Swedish folktales. There’s also some info on some of the creatures that appear in the stories. At the end of the book are notes on the stories and a map showing where all the regions of Sweden are. My country is divided into 25 regions, sort of the way the US has states, with their own governing power. Some tales are more prominent in some regions than others. For example, tales from Denmark have slipped over to Skåne, which is Sweden’s southernmost region.

Now I should probably get my head round to doing some comic book work. As far as I can tell, it’s easier to get an audience for your comics, than for your crime novel, if you don’t have a big publishing house backing you up.

No comments:

Post a Comment