Calgary, -7C, overcast. A large grey coyote in the garden this morning –looked like a mixture between a wolf and a fox.

I calculated today that I have now lived abroad just as long as I lived in Sweden. Who would have imagined that when I took a job that would last for ”2-3” years? I wrote a lot as young, but when I moved abroad, for many years, I felt I didn’t have a language; the Swedish remained that of a 20-year old girl in the 90’s, and the English just wasn’t good enough. Last week, at the launch in Calgary of Wolf Winter, someone in the audience asked if I wrote in English or Swedish. “English,” I said and one of the Swedish ladies in the audience said quietly, “That was probably a good thing.” Now I think I shouldn’t have let ’language’ stop me – I missed writing and I don’t think I was a whole person without it. When I no longer had a choice – I had to put pen to paper – I chose to write in English which I used every day. I’ll learn, I thought. And I did. But it took time. To write Wolf Winter took four years. I quite like writing in something other than my mother tongue – I don’t have perhaps as big a reverence for the language, which gives me a certain etymological freedom. But I apologise in advance for any rambling on this site – please try and bear with my endeavours, strange word choices and any “Swenglish” that might ensue!