Featured Interview With Filidh Lochlannach
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a Norwegian woman, 40 years old.
I published my first e-book “The Dragon Leaves” in the spring 2014.
I study climate change, history and philosophy in between my writing, and ”The Dragon Leaves” is a collection of vignettes inspired by my studies.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I was an early reader. I started reading when I was 4,5 years old. I skipped most of the children’s books and jumped straight to Steinbeck and other novels by famous authors writing for a grown up audience. I soon found out that I wanted to write my own stuff, I’ve kept alternating diaries and journals since I started school and up until now, and literature was what I liked the most in school.
My first published book was “The Dragon Leaves” released in the spring 2014.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite author is still John Steinbeck, but at the moment also Tom Egeland and Snorri Sturlusson have to be mentioned. Steinbeck has always been there, but the others can shift a little bit from time to time.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Hiking is one of my main interests besides writing books. I like to walk to places with a purpose of finding out about their own unique histories. I’ve found old buildings, farms, hill-forts, old trails in the mountains and much more on my journeys, and some questions always pop up in my head. “What imprints were made on this land that shaped it into what it is today?” and “Who did it?” and “Why?” During my studies of nature philosophy I learnt how to get answers to these questions and I became very fascinated by the “Spirit of the Land” and the “Songs in the Wind”. I had thought about putting it all down on paper for a long time. I had kept some kind of a messy journal mixed with historical research, old myths and my own experiences from my walking. Then I joined the “National Writing Month” in 2013, a contest where the participants are supposed to produce 50.000 words in a month. I grabbed the opportunity and transformed my research into a story. I won the challenge, but there was still a lot of work to do to finish the novel. All I had was a very raw text that needed to be put a lot of effort into to become a manuscript, and I suddenly got that nudge in the right direction of going through yet another transformation – making the novel a collection of poetry and short prose. I happened to love to write in such a free manner. I chose a writing style that had few strict rules, and my creative imagination and intuition got the chance to flow more easily when I didn’t have to think about rules and compositions. My pieces of writing became snapshots of my own experiences. They became descriptions of moments that can stand alone, although I think they are strongest when they are read together from start to end.
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