Central Stockholm on a frosty Friday night. Photo by Robert Corkery.

It took a while, but Stockholm has fully settled into winter over the last two weeks. Last night, it was -19 C. Yup, it is cold. But the snow puts such a blanket of quiet on the city. And the streets look like they were painted white. I like it.

David Nicholls reading at Stockholm's version of Book Slam London.

On Thursday night, I went to Book Slam London at Kulturhuset. This was not your typical author event. Instead, it was a literary nightclub. There were book readings sure, but there were also poetry readings as well as hip-hop and jazz music. But even that doesn’t begin to explain the night very well. Because poetry readings can be just plain weird, book readings dull. This event was cool. And it felt good to call myself a writer.

The book slam band.

Lemn Sissay served as the emcee of the event and read his own very good poetry, then he was followed by a reading from Swedish author Amanda Svensson. Kate Tempest was next and she exceeded all my expectations. She is an amazingly talented and wacky combination of rapper and poet. And as I expected, David Nicholls’ two readings and a q&a session with Lemn were all fantastic. I read his book One Day some time ago and loved it, so I will now have to read his other two books.

In between all the different readings, either a DJ or a band played. And there was also a performance from Swedish hip hop performer Alexis Weak, who was not as good as I hoped he would be. Oh well. Overall, the evening was a whole lot of fun. To see if the literary nightclub is coming to your city, check out Book slam London.

Kate Tempest performing.

Photos by Robert Corkery.

As I promised in my post yesterday, the penthouse is where the permanent collection is in Sven-Harry’s art museum. Not surprisingly for a penthouse, it has a great view – it overlooks Vasa Park. The terrace has some sculptures and seating. And in the snow with the lights glowing from inside the museum, it looked like a magical place. But I think it might be a better spot to spend some time at in the summer.

The rooftop sculpture garden.

Looking down onto the hockey rink in Vasaparken from the roof.

The Black Box party at Sven-Harry's art museum in Stockholm. Nice food, huh?

Just in time for helping me forget my winter blah’s, I went to a party at a new art museum in Stockholm: Sven-Harry’s. First of all, don’t you love the name? Sven-Harry’s sounds like a great bar or cafe name, not like the konstmuseum or art museum that it is. It was opened last year by architect Sven-Harry Karlsson and houses his own collection of art that was 30 years in the making.

A little champagne, anyone?

The museum also features a gallery and restaurant and interestingly, the permanent collection is on the top floor in a space that recreates rooms in Sven-Harry’s classic 1700s manor house, thus making you somehow feel like you are right at home. The exterior and other floors of the museum are uniquely modern with lots of glass and brass.

Sven-Harry's permanent collection is displayed in his "home."

By the way, I was at the museum on Monday night for an equally cool purpose: a party to celebrate creativity and thinking inside the box for inspiration. The event was put on by Iggesund paper company for their Black Box Project.  It was a wonderful combination of art, food and champagne. And it was definitely a good way to spend a winter night.

Sven-Harry’s is located in Vasaparken in central Stockholm. I will share a few cool photos of the rooftop terrace tomorrow.

Robert checking out the gallery space.

Sled riding at Haga Park in Stockholm.

A snow picnic, complete with a mini grill and hot dogs.

If it’s a sunny day, Swedes get out. And that is no matter what the temperature or time of year is. I love that attitude. Although it was -4 C on Sunday, it was sunny, so people were out in the parks. In Haga Park, people were sled riding, ice skating, walking and even picnicking. It was wonderful. I have to admit that I really wanted to borrow a sled for a ride down the slope. Then I saw one little boy deliberately ride into his sister. After which she promptly got up and kicked him. So I figured it was a tough crowd and I had better get my own sled.

Strolling in the sunshine.

Afternoon shadows on the sledding slope.

The copper tents in Haga Park, Stockholm.

Living where we do now, we are surrounded by a lot of concrete. So it felt like a relief yesterday to venture out of the house and take a walk in the snow. I went with Zanne to Haga Park and we walked through the woods and around the frozen Brunnsviken lake. The day was cold but sunny and it felt so good to be away from city streets.

Since I first saw them, I’ve always been fascinated by the Koppartälten or copper tents in the park. The tents are actually three buildings that were designed to look like Turkish tents and they always seem like they would be more at home in a desert oasis than a Stockholm park. In the snow, they were even more out of place, but somehow even more charming. By the way, the tents were built in 1787 to house stables and barracks for the palace guards. Today, they house a cafe and park museum.

The grand entrance.

The cafe.

Zanne posing.

Winter shadows on Skeppsholmen, Stockholm. Photo by Robert Corkey.

I have had a cold for a few weeks now. The cough that sounds like I have smoked cigarettes for 30 years has been around for over a week, as has the headache and general lethargy. I am so done with it. Gradually, I think it is getting better. But I also thought that about 10 days ago and then it all came back full force. So I am really trying to take care of myself and rest. I am just not very good at stopping.

By the way, the photo above was taken during the in between days when I thought I might be getting better. The shot was taken on the island of Skeppsholmen during the last brilliant flash of light before sunset. I love the shadows on the building.

The colorful changing huts on Brighton Beach in Melbourne.

It’s snowing here in Stockholm, so I am distracting myself with thinking about our upcoming trip down under. And as today is Australia Day – Australia’s national day –  I pulled out some photos from the archives. I chose the one above because what could be more Australian than going to the beach and enjoying the sunshine and surf? And then I couldn’t resist adding the one below because if you are going to spend the day at the beach, than you want the famous lifeguards there to save you, of course, than that led me to thinking of the budgie smugglers. The budgie smuggler is a Speedo type swimsuit that was given this illustrious name as the “bump” in the front is said to resemble a budgie or budgerigar, better known to most of us as a parakeet.

The Australian Budgie smuggler.

Finally, I had to add in the photo of the meat pie and beer, a classic meal combination in the land down under. Now I have to thank my Australian husband Robert for leading me down this road of Australiana. He will try to deny this, but he did play me a number of classic Australian songs from the 70s and 80s last night, including Eagle Rock by Daddy Cool. Oh my.

A meat pie and Tasmanian beer. Yum.

I hit a wall. And I have to say, it seemed insurmountable. As some of you already  know, I’ve been writing a memoir called Going Viking. It’s the often very funny story of an American (me) struggling to carve out a new life in the hard to understand culture of Sweden. At the same time, the book also includes the tales of a passionate traveller (me, again) on adventures in Australia, Iceland, Italy, China, South Africa and more.

Over the last six months or so, I wrote new chapters for my book that I was really happy with and I needed to update the book’s proposal accordingly. (To get a book published, you have to create a business proposal for it to entice an agent and thus a publisher.) I wrote all the major sections – the competitive analysis, my marketing platform, the book summary and so on – but when it came to finishing the revisions on my chapter summaries, I got stuck. I procrastinated and took care of other writing projects instead.

You  need to know that for over two decades, I’ve worked on magazines. I’ve been the editor in chief of six different magazines and countless one-time publications and am used to writing quickly and meeting regular deadlines. I know how to edit and slash my own work. But I’m human. And somewhere along the way to writing my book, I got lost in all the hundreds of pages of text.

Finishing that last section of the proposal loomed over me like the grim reaper. I skyped with my fellow magazine writer, editor and longtime friend Bryn of Writes4food yesterday. We have bi-weekly meetings about our writing projects and goals and she was telling me of her plans to do something she had been meaning to do for a long time: learn how to improve the photography for her blog. I was so proud of her.

And I knew then that I needed to do some tough love in terms of my own work. I printed out the 40 or so pages of copy I needed to revise, spread them out on the much larger than my desk surface of the dining room table and started doing some old school, hardcore revising. Quickly, I figured out the problem – I couldn’t let go of some writing that I loved, but that no longer was relevant to the book. So I began chopping. It felt good.

I’ve got more work to do, but I’m on my way. I’ll be taking a brief break on adding new posts to the blog, but I will share a few old favorites to make up for it. Now I’m back to the dining room…

Snowy Karlavägen on Saturday night in Stockholm.

Finally, at almost the end of January, it feels like winter. It started snowing Saturday afternoon. And it continued most of Sunday. It was a very light snow and it didn’t really accumulate all that much. As we walked home in the snow on Saturday night, a quiet had come over the city. I stopped, lifted my face up and let the snowflakes fall on my face. Nice.

Eriksbergsplan in Stockholm.