Dear network,

Hope you’re keeping well and, if you’re in the northern hemisphere, hope you’re also enjoying spring.

Here in the UK, spring’s been off to a slow start – we even had some snow this month – but the days are now a little longer and a little lighter.

It’s been a busy few months for me since my travel memoir, Wayward Wanderings, came out in February and I’m very happy to say the book has reached 10 countries by now, finding new homes in places as diverse as China, Canada and Slovenia, among others.

That said, since the UK left the European Union in January, sending my books to Europe has become a lot more complex and I’d like to apologise to those readers who have had to wait a long time for their purchases to arrive. Unfortunately parcels to Sweden, in particular, are taking a long time (I’ve had reports of books being stuck in customs up to 6-7 weeks!) – very frustrating since it’s the country where I have the most readers after the UK. However, the situation appears to be improving slightly after the first few months of red tape. Recent UK-EU law changes may also be having an impact on online shopping and I have added a link on my website for Scandinavian customers (as they have reported issues using my web shop). Readers in Sweden and Denmark, can scroll down to the bottom of my web shop page where there’s a link to an alternative shopping route, if you experience problems:

https://amhellbergmoberg.co.uk/shop/

With readers in 10 countries, plenty of comments and feedback have been trickling in and most of it positive, which has been great to hear! Many thanks to those of you who have read the book and got in touch to let me know your thoughts. If anyone would like to do a review that I can use for my website, that would be much appreciated. Also, since it’s a travel book, I’d be very keen to receive photos of the book in different locations, to see what adventures it’s getting up to without me.

In other news, I have been busy writing a number of features and doing a few interviews as well.

Below is a guest blog I did for Nordnorsk Reiseliv/Northern Norway tourist board the other month:

https://nordnorge.com/en/artikkel/anna-maria-has-five-favourites-in-the-north/

(also available in Norwegian on the same website)

And an interview for a network of language professionals:

https://languageprofessionalsnetworking.com/qa-with-a-language-professional/interview-with-anna-maria-espsater-multilingual-writer-and-speaker/

In case you’re wondering, I certainly haven’t given up fiction and one of the stories, The Girl Who Was Loved by Her Father, from my 2019 collection of short stories, Boldly Into Darkness Go was recently published (and also translated into Welsh) by a magazine called Reach Out. It is most definitely the first time I’ve been translated into Norwegian and Welsh in the same week (or ever). And talking about translation, I did a freestyle translation into Swedish of the first chapter of the new travel book for local magazine GûnnerskeNytt, in western Sweden. There may be a Swedish version of the book published at some point, but not for a while yet.

With travel still off the menu in most parts of the world, compiling Wayward Wanderings provided me with a good dose of escapism and if you are missing travel, hopefully it’s the kind of book that would whisk you away on an armchair adventure until wilder/wider adventures become more viable.

It’s available from my website, as well as a couple of smaller, independent shops, and it might also soon be available from local libraries here in London.

Here is the link again:

https://amhellbergmoberg.co.uk/product/wayward-wanderings/

In terms of future plans, I’m getting involved in a Writers’ and Readers’ festival organised by the main library of my neighbouring borough, Lambeth, here in London, running the first two weeks of June – my first online speaking engagement, focused on my winter fairy tale, Hug-Snow Days.

Last bit of news of the day – I have tentatively started work on a new book project. Back to fiction – yay! Much as I love a bit of travel writing, on and off, fiction is still my main focus. The new book is “novel-sized”, although not quite “novel-shaped” as yet. The first draft was written during my 2-month stint in Lapland/Northern Norway in 2017 and has since been “percolating”, but I think its time has come. The book is set in a fictitious cemetery with all the stories told from beyond the grave. Watch this space and have a good spring everyone!

As always, feel free to get in touch and share comments, images or just to say hi.

All the best,

AM Hellberg Moberg

P.S. Over the last month, I’ve been sharing “Around the World in 50 Photos” posts on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter – do take a look.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-maria-esps%C3%A4ter-aka-am-hellberg-moberg-b855023/

@annamariaespsater

@HellbergMoberg