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”
Tag Archives: writing
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”
The Wordhord
The Wordhord is indeed a treasure trove of old English words, written with deep affection and expertise by Hana Videen. If you speak a Scandinavian or Germanic language, you will be delighted to meet many older cousins of English words here. For instance, I knew that a dead body was a Leiche in German. ButContinue reading “The Wordhord”
English in the Nordic Countries
Would you enter an establishment offering fifty shades of skrei?* If you would, is that still English? Who decides who gets a piece of the English (fish?) pie? Who is English for? “Native” speakers, scholars, professionals, politicians? Or children, teenagers and gamers? It was an absolute delight to discuss all these questions and more atContinue reading “English in the Nordic Countries”
New year, new words
At the end of the year, the English dictionaries hit us with words of 2023 thick and fast. In 2024, which ones do you think will stick? Artificial intelligence (Collins) was the obvious choice. In 2023, this meant generative AI based on large language models you could ‘talk’ to, like ChatGPT (the Economist). But theseContinue reading “New year, new words”
We wrote a book
This week, with two colleagues, I sent a book we had edited off to the publisher for peer review. This same week, I finished the first draft translation of another book. I’m working on that one with the author and a master’s student on placement with me. So in both cases, we were a teamContinue reading “We wrote a book”
Human versus artificial writing: wheat and chaff
So I finally tried ChatGPT. And this is how it went. I went through the hassle of setting up a new email address and played with the free version of OpenAI. I wanted it to get to do something it’s supposed to be good at. To digest what I had learned so far about largeContinue reading “Human versus artificial writing: wheat and chaff”
Ridge Writing Retreats 