Some news from the literary front

October is traditionally the month of book fairs in Finland. The first weekend has the book fair in Turku (where I live) and the last weekend has the Helsinki fair. I of course attended both and am now exhausted after the Helsinki experience. It was fun, though. I made a deal with a publisher about a collection of articles I've been working on and off for some years now, and I heard that there's been some foreign interest in Verenhimo (Blood Lust), the vampire anthology that came out early this year!

At the Turku fair two books saw the light of day that had some of my stuff in it. The first one was Åbsurdistiska berättelser, a small collection of absurdist short stories (which is the title translated) that take place in Turku (Åbo in Swedish, hence the name). The book was published by Turbator, one of my most important publishers, and it came out only in Swedish that's the second official language in Finland and an important minority language in Turku. My story is a bit fairytalish, but with a political bent. The second one was a massive collection of new Finnish experimental poetry called Vastakaanon (Anti-Canon). I have two poems in it that are of the found variety and they have actually something to do with this blog! I have a series of poems made with the same theme, I might do a small pamphlet with them later on.

Will the absurdist short story ever be published in Finnish? Time will tell, but I've been thinking I'll do a collection of absurdist short stories some day. I already have four published and one in the works, so it wouldn't be hard to complete the book. One of these days...

As for some other news: I just completed a small collection of early Finnish horror short stories. It should come out in November from Faros. The architectural guide to Turku that I've been working on for at least a year and a half (or at least it feels like it!) is now almost going to the printers, my colleague is working on the last corrections. I'm not sure whether it makes it before Christmas, which would be a pity. I'm not sure either whether my Actual First Novel ("actual" in the sense of being published by someone else than me) makes it before Christmas, but I'll keep you posted.

And oh, here's a nice review (in Finnish, of course) of the outdoors anthology I edited earlier this year.

What else? You think that's enough? This is again one of those instances where I think I should've been working harder. Oh, there's this, which I mentioned in passing.