Wednesday, 9 December 2015

Between Two Worlds

For about a year now, I have been working with Nordland Publishing, who is based in Oslo, Norway. It is all for a trilogy of anthologies that they will be publishing, which is called the Northlore Series. Every volume will be focusing on different aspects of Scandinavian folklore and mythology. The first volume was published in the summer of 2015 and it focused on folklore. It is filled with short stories and poems about trolls, fairies and the undead. My short story, Between Two Worlds, is story of a selkie and is set in Kirkwall in Orkney.

A little word of explaination for those who might not know. A selkie is a seal that can come ashore, take off it's skin and walk on land, as a human. Usually, these stories involve a fisherman finding a beautiful young woman, who just happens to be a selkie. He takes her skin, she ends up marrying him and they have children. As these stories go, the selkie retrieves her skin after a few years and returns to the sea. Many of the selkie stories are found in the area of Orkney, Shetland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland.

Having spent a few months living in the Orkney Isles, I set my story in Kirkwall, a city that I love. I did reverse the roles, with the selkie in my story being male and the person who finds him being a young woman. The story does involve another twist, which I want to remain a surprise for any possible readers.

We are currently working on the second volume of the Northlore Series. The theme for the second volume is the Gods. There will be short stories and poems about Odin, Loki, Saga and many more. All of them will be se the Norse gods and goddesses living with in the modern world. I will find it interesting to see how different writers will have the gods facing how the world has changed and how they have come to terms with the world as we know it.

No date has been set for when the second volume will be published, but the first volume is still available - 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Folklore-1-Northlore-MJ-Kobernus-y/dp/828331002X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449684972&sr=1-1


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