When I finally got my PhD, I thought I could relax and rest on my laurels for a moment. My grandfather thought otherwise. The first thing he said after congratulating me was: when are you going to publish the book? Sad to say, twenty years later, I never quite got round to turning that monographContinue reading “From Dissertation to Book”
Author Archives: Kate Sotejeff-Wilson
Reading to challenge your writing
This summer holiday, I finished the Helsinki libraries reading challenge for 2025 (Helmet means “Helsinki metropolitan area” by the way, not a biker’s or knight’s headgear). At new year, I had decided to face my chronic TBR problem and stop buying new books until I had read some I already have. So I pulled themContinue reading “Reading to challenge your writing”
Women writing about walking
Not that particular woman writing about walking who has been in the news recently. (I haven’t read that book, and now I don’t feel like it, though I enjoyed her two pages in this one.) Women have been writing about walking for hundreds of years. Way Makers: An Anthology of Women’s Writing about Walking bringsContinue reading “Women writing about walking”
Reclaim your brain
Did you start your own cyber cleanse yet? A few months ago, I almost quit Google and Meta. Not completely, because some groups I can’t live without still use GoogleDrive folders to cowrite or WhatsApp to get organized. Everything I run and write myself is now elsewhere, but it’s still hard to get bigger groupsContinue reading “Reclaim your brain”
Writing, fast and slow
On Wednesdays since the beginning of January, I’ve been doing an exercise from a lovely little book, Creative Writing for Researchers. Taking five months to get through a 160-page book might seem extraordinarily slow. Some of the twenty-odd exercises took twenty minutes. Others took a lot longer. Sometimes I honed a haiku, other times IContinue reading “Writing, fast and slow”
Languages, dislocations, reorientations
Moving between languages can dislocate you, but creatively reorient you. I’ve been thinking about this with a group of philosophers and artists. At the final event of the HARMAA project, Disclocations, Irina Poleshchuk moderated a panel on language, experience, and art. Comics artist Sasha_D, project artist Pauliina Mäkelä, joined me as their translator and editor. WeContinue reading “Languages, dislocations, reorientations”
London Book Fair 2025: the people behind the books
At the Helsinki Book Fair, I have one rule. If it doesn’t fit into a single canvas bag, I can’t take it home. Local libraries are fantastic here, but so is the book fair discount, and some titles I want to buy, lend, and keep. While this is the place to meet other translators, literaryContinue reading “London Book Fair 2025: the people behind the books”
Do I need a developmental editor?
There are as many kinds of editor as there are species of butterfly – or at least three main types. Often, people don’t distinguish between proofreading and copyediting. Proofreading is reading the proofs, to make essential changes to the final version before publication. Copyediting is editing the or copy or raw material, to make sureContinue reading “Do I need a developmental editor?”
A Bookshop of One’s Own
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, two women found a silver moon. They burnished it till it shone and let a rope ladder down to earth so that all the other women could climb up into the stories. It was only possible because then, the earth was warm red, not cold blue.Continue reading “A Bookshop of One’s Own”
Happy new year, happy new writing!
Happy new year and happy new writing! 2025 is full of opportunities to write together and I hope you can join me for as many as possible. We are returning to some of our favourite venues and trying a new format. Fifth birthday party: write up to teatime Ridge Writing Retreats turned five last autumnContinue reading “Happy new year, happy new writing!”
Ridge Writing Retreats 