Goodreads asked Oskar Östlund:

How do you get inspired to write?

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.

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