With Tara Sweeney and Nate Christopherson We are a mother-and-son creative team. A to Zåäö: Playing with History at the American Swedish Institute is our debut picture book. It’s taken nearly four years to complete it. Our individual artistic styles are polar opposites: I use vivid watercolor to create convincing illusions of the observable world; … More Behind the Book: A to Zåäö
BY OLA LARSMO I guess it was the silence that caught my imagination. It was very deep, in the middle of a bustling city. My wife, Rita, had spent an important year as an exchange student in Minneapolis and wanted to visit old friends. When we first went there in 2006, I knew that I … More Swede Hollow: The surprises and intrigue behind Ola Larsmo’s haunting story of a real place
INTRODUCTION BY TRANSLATOR BARBARA SJOHOLM As the translator of Clearing Out, I’m delighted to be able to introduce the Norwegian author Helene Uri and her marvelously written and moving novel to a North American audience. Clearing Out is a novel of losses (languages, histories, and parents), but also of discoveries and rediscoveries (heritage, memories, and … More An Interview with Helene Uri, author of CLEARING OUT
BY BARBARA SJOHOLM By the Fire is an uncommon collection of Sami folktales recorded by a woman who was herself quite remarkable for her time. Emilie Demant Hatt was born in a rural village in Jutland, Denmark, in 1873 and only attended school up to the age of fourteen. But with help from her mother’s … More How a chance encounter led to an uncommon collection of Sami folktales by Emilie Demant Hatt.
BY VIDAR SUNDSTØL In the old days in Norway—up until the end of the 19th century—the night between the 23rd and 24th of June was the night to harvest any kind of plants that were supposed to hold healing or magical powers. At the same time it was a dangerous night to be wandering around … More Midsummer Eve: A gateway to another, sometimes dangerous, world.
BY BEATRICE OJAKANGASExcerpted from Homemade The Christmas season for us was marked by the beginning of Christmas tree season in October. Isä [Ojakangas’s father] had discovered that he could make a bunch of money by cutting and selling Christmas trees. He would pile the cut trees onto the platform of his truck and deliver the … More Christmas Trees + Beatrice Ojakangas’s Pulla People holiday recipe.
Last night, the Press celebrated the launch of Homemade: Finnish Rye, Feed Sack Fashion, and Other Simple Ingredients from My Life in Food, a memoir-cookbook by James Beard Cookbook Hall of Famer, author of 30 cookbooks, and self-described home economist Beatrice Ojakangas. This sold-out event at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis included a conversation … More Lefse advice + Finnish Blueberry Bars recipe from Beatrice Ojakangas.
A fishing boat in Norway’s Lofoten Islands. Author Eric Dregnispent a year on a Fulbright Fellowship in Trondheim, Norway, where his first child was born.Images courtesy of the author. ——-This is the first in a series running this week on authors’ favorite holiday recipes.——-BY ERIC DREGNI The fishmonger at the Ravnkloa seafood shop in Trondheim tricked me. … More Recipe spectacular: Bury your fish for better flavor and other questionable Norwegian advice.
BY DAVID M. KRUEGER Pope Francis has arrived in the U.S. and is soon to arrive here in Philadelphia, a city that carries the moniker the “Birthplace of America.” The nation’s founding documents might have been signed here, but something that isn’t so obvious to those familiar with America’s establishment is that there is a … More The Kensington Rune Stone Legend and the Catholic Church
Vidar Sundstøl in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Photographs by Shea Sundstøl. BY VIDAR SUNDSTØLAcclaimed Norwegian writer and author of the Minnesota Trilogy The last seven years of my professional life in Norway have been focused on writing or speaking about the North Shore of Lake Superior. The people, the forest, the lake, the history. However, I … More "The landscape with its special magic and the people with their stories": How Minnesota’s North Shore inspired Vidar Sundstøl’s chilling Minnesota Trilogy.
