Margrét Helgadóttir's Blog

As many of you know, I love to write short stories. It’s a fun challenge to try to create a world and tell a story with a word limit.

And since I write in English and not in my native language, I have discovered that short stories is a good way to train my English writing voice.

If you are interested in reading them, many of my stories can be read online, see a list here, with direct links to the stories.

I have also several stories published in different anthologies. I have now select...

Tis the season for spooky tales! Get yourself one of the monster books from Fox Spirit Books, edited by yours truly. 

We know them from ancient legends and tales whispered by the campfire. They don’t sparkle or have any interest in us except to tear us apart. Forgotten, unknown, misunderstood, overused, watered down. We want to give them a renaissance, to reestablish their dark reputation, to give them a comeback, let the world know of their real terror.

The Fox Spirit Books of Monsters is a cof...

I have a new short story out today!

This is the first new story from me in a long time, so I’m very happy.

The short story is called “Tunnel Fever” and takes place in a futuristic roadside bar inside a network of tunnels deep down in the Arctic Ocean. Here you’ll meet the waitress Vilde, who suffers from claustrophobia and dreams of life above the surface. Read the story here.

The story is this month’s Future Tense Fiction story, a speculative fiction series and collaboration between Arizona Sta...

I have a book anniversary! Fox Spirit Books published my debut book The Stars Seem So Far Away 10 years ago today. The book is an apocalyptic road tale set in a far-future Arctic world, told through linked tales of five survivors.

The last shuttles to the space colonies are long gone. Wars, famine and plagues rage across the dying Earth. Fleeing the deadly sun, humans migrate farther and farther north. Follow the stories of five very different survivors as they cling to what is left of life in a ...

Chuffed to see that the lovely editor Lavie Tidhar has chosen the anthology Nordic Visions for the 2024 World SF book bundle.

The editor of the lovely Best of World SF books, Tidhar, carefully curates books every year for the story bundle.

This year sees ten awesome titles from around the world. The Nordic Visions anthology is in great company with books by authors and editors such as Ekaterina Sedia, Fabio Fernandes, and Aliette de Bodard.

The book bundle is available from today until...

As promised, here is a list of the awards eligibility for the stories in the Nordic Visions anthology.

Nordic Visions – The Best of Nordic Speculative Fiction (eds. Margret Helgadottir), was published by Solaris Books in October 2023. Read more about the anthology here.

The anthology in itself is eligible for nominations to Best anthology published in 2023, and I (Margret Helgadottir) am eligible as editor short form. This is my 9th anthology as editor, all anthologies within the speculati...

Just a short note to tell you that the Nordic Visions anthology is on Locus Magazine’s 2023 Recommended Reading List.

The list is put together by Locus editors, columnists, outside reviewers, and other professionals and well-known critics of genre fiction and non-fiction. Read it here.

The list is published in Locus magazine’s February 2024 issue.

Very chuffed to see that the anthology was included, in company with great anthologies from last year such as the Never Whistle at Night, Ne...

Wishing all who celebrate today a Merry Christmas! 

Jólabókaflóðið is a tradition in Iceland where people are gifted new books to read for Christmas. This Christmas Rebellion Publishing has selected good memories from myself and a few of the authors in the Nordic Visions anthology about special books we have gifted, or been gifted, for the Yule time.

Check it out: https://rebellionpublishing.com/jolabokaflodid-with-the-authors-of-nordic-visions/

I am so pleased to tell you that the anthology Nordic Visions is out now.

Buy it at your favourite bookstore or online, for instance here. 

A Unique Speculative Fiction Collection From The Nordic Countries.

Storytelling has been a major force in the Nordic countries for thousands of years, renowned for its particular sense of dark humour, featuring pacts with nature and a view of the worlds you seldom find in other places.

Perhaps it is the freezing cold winter? The closeness to ...

Chuffed to tell you that there’s a huge interview with me over at Clarkesworld Magazine in their October issue, written by lovely Arley Sorg.

In which I talk a bit personal about myself, and about editing anthologies, a praise to anthologies in general, and about Nordic genre literature and the forthcoming anthology Nordic Visions from Solaris Books. Read the interview here.

The book is scheduled for release October 10th and can be preordered here.

Thanks so much to the wonderfu...