Ask the Author: Oskar Östlund
Answered Questions (10)
Oskar Östlund
There was this family in my hometown, the small coastal town where I grew up and where The Wolf's Time is set. I was friends with their oldest son. One night, they simply vanished—they moved out during the night, to somewhere else in Sweden. None of my friends knew about it. The next day, their house stood empty. To this day, I haven't heard the reason, but they definitely moved out, and it was fast.
Oskar Östlund
I barely read anything this summer. I was focused on translating my Swedish book Vargatid into English. Though, I always kept a few Alan Dean Foster novels nearby for language reference.
Oskar Östlund
Well, it has to be Lovecraft Country—the gloomy, misty, rainy New England coast, with its eerie and spooky countryside and haunted towns. And what would I do once I got there? Probably die, or go mad. Maybe I'd spend some time reading at Miskatonic University before meeting my inevitable doom.
Oskar Östlund
Wow... that's a challenge.
Alistair found an old, dust-covered book in the library's forgotten corner, its pages filled with symbols he just couldn’t resist translating. By the time he finished the last line, he heard a soft, eerie and unfamiliar voice behind him whisper, "Now we see you too."
Alistair found an old, dust-covered book in the library's forgotten corner, its pages filled with symbols he just couldn’t resist translating. By the time he finished the last line, he heard a soft, eerie and unfamiliar voice behind him whisper, "Now we see you too."
Oskar Östlund
This typically happens to me around the middle part of the story. It’s like climbing a hill on a rusty bike with a flat tire. Getting to the middle is a struggle, but once you round that peak, it’s all downhill from there. The story just completes itself. But getting past that middle part is frustrating. I got through it with help from other authors. The last time, it was during a meetup with two Swedish horror authors, Madeleine Bäck and Jenny Lundin. These two took my blocked head, gave it a 180-degree twist, and kicked my imagination back to life. Now it’s all downhill again. The most important thing is to have allies and friends who you can bounce ideas off and who can offer critique. For me at least.
Oskar Östlund
For me, it's just part-time now, but I love coming up with stories and the worlds around them. I've always had a strong creative imagination, so that's never been a problem. The best part is that writing feels like therapy for me—I can just write stuff down, and it speaks to me. Hopefully, it speaks to you too.
Oskar Östlund
Just do it. If you have the creative spark to concoct a story of your own, write it down—whether it’s two sentences a day or a page a day. If you’re unsure where to take the story next, just keep writing. Stephen King famously said he knows "f-all what it’s gonna be about" but lets the story take him places. Lee Child works the same way.
Oskar Östlund
The follow-up to The Wolf's Time is, of course, in Swedish, with the English version to be worked on afterwards. This sequel delves even deeper into themes of survival and dread as Sweden teeters on the brink of losing the battle against an unknown foe.
Oskar Östlund
My main inspiration came when I read a Swedish horror story called Vattnet drar, or The Water Draws in English, by a marvelous and haunting author named Madeleine Bäck. She's a well-known horror writer from Sweden. Her story was set in her hometown, Hofors, and filled with a sense of Lovecraftian dread. That really pushed me to take my own writing seriously—I wanted to do something like that! Then a friend of mine simply said, "Just write it," so I did.
Oskar Östlund
The idea for this book was born sometime in my late teens. At first, it was just a typical cool scenario I came up with while playing pen-and-paper RPGs with some friends. I was probably around 16 or 17. I'm 35 now, so that was quite a while ago. From the start, I knew I wanted the premise to be an external force wiping out our town. Over time, the idea evolved. When I finally began writing, I wanted to incorporate tropes and inspiration from the different types of media we grew up with.
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