I am thrilled to have interviewed author Bjørn Larssen, who shared with us details of his writing life, his book ‘Land‘, which was released on 5th November 2024, and answered a few fun questions. This post contains affiliate links.

Bjørn Larssen is an award-winning author of historical fiction and fantasy, dark and funny in varying proportions. His writing has been described as ‘dark,’ ‘literary,’ ‘cinematic,’ ‘hilarious,’ and ‘there were points where I was almost having to read through a small gap between my fingers.’

His debut novel, Storytellers, won a Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal (Best Historical Fiction Novel) and was shortlisted for Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Award. His fantasy works, Children and Why Odin Drinks have been shortlisted for eleven (11) Indie Ink Awards – so far; Children was also nominated for a Stabby Award (Best Indie Novel of 2020). Bjørn is a Queer Indie Award laureate (best speculative fiction author) and very proud of it.

Bjørn has a Master of Science degree in mathematics, and has previously worked as a graphic designer, a model, a bartender, and a blacksmith (not all at the same time). He currently lives with his husband in Almere, which is unfortunately located in The Netherlands, rather than Iceland.

He has only met an elf once. So far.

Land – the second book in The Ten Worlds series, sequel to Children – is inspired by the Norse lore and, as often is with me, a weird historical report that makes me ask questions and answer them myself. The Icelandic Landnámabók tells us that Hrafnaflóki, or Raven-Flóki, who discovered Iceland somewhere around 868AD, took three ravens with him. He set each of them free to see whether the bird would return; if there was no land, the raven would have no choice but to come back to the ship.

I asked myself, what, were those single-use ravens? Why not just have one and send it flying three times? And…what if that was Odin’s raven?

Completely in my head, with my characters ‘helping’. Originally, I had the idea of the male protagonist, Magni, accidentally inventing socialism and turning it into communism (I grew up in a communist country and those are not times I look back at with fondness). Magni shrugged and said, “I’d never do that.” When I asked “what would you do then?” he was like, you’re the author, you figure it out, keep me posted. Luckily, he gave his approval to my second idea.

The main plot has never changed; the Norse deities and some mortals move from the Norse Nine Worlds to the Tenth world – Earth. This is followed by a mythology-laced re-telling of Hrafnaflóki’s discovery of Iceland, including the ending: Flóki hated Iceland, yet later returned and died there. Why? I had to find my answer before I could write the ending.

My books choose their titles. Land is a stupid title for a fantasy novel, it hardly explains anything, but this book was called Land before I typed the first words. I considered renaming Children, which is very much an adult only book, Children of the Gods before finding out that was a series of weirdly queerphobic vampire erotica ‘romances’.

Since Land is historical fantasy, most of the work has been done for me, whether they were Gods or mortals. But once they reach Iceland, they meet the Hidden Folk, who might or might not exist and be called elves in the 21st century. I mostly chose their names using the Finnish naming dictionary (please don’t ask me why Finnish) or because they sounded good inside my head, like Khari or Bælin. There are also coded versions of my friends’ names – or not so coded, such as Queen Timy.

Maya, the female protagonist, actually comes from a book I binned. When I was writing the first in series, it was supposed to be about Magni, a little known son of the Norse God Thor. Maya sort of glanced at it and was like, oh, I like it, I’m moving in and now half of the book is about me. Children was Maya’s book with Magni in it, Land is mostly hers. She came to me fully formed, always dressed in black, thin, not conventionally pretty, with a silver bracelet, sarcastic, and simply told me what her name was.

Don’t worry, I don’t have real conversations with my characters! I only talk with them inside my head.

*hides face in hands* Oh Gods, that was the most research I have ever done! I even hired an expert – Steven of Fjorn’s Hall – to help me, and got 18 pages of text and illustrations and diagrams from him. I bought countless books just to figure out what a knarr’s deck looks like, and bought a model, because the books were not enough. I briefly corresponded with – sadly deceased now – professor Gunnar Karlsson, the author of History of Iceland, to find out what sort of wildlife the early settlers could have found upon their arrival. Then I started adapting my findings to my needs, because luckily historical fiction is allowed to be fictional. But I want to know the reality before I start adapting it to my needs.

I’m obsessed with Iceland and I am what’s called a Norse pagan or (my preference) heathen nowadays. Settling on the 9th century, when people believed the Gods walked among them, made it historical fantasy. So, the genre chose itself. All I wanted was to tell my characters’ stories and this was the way that made the most sense.

The subgenre, grimdark, means that there are no clear goodies and baddies. There is no villain that loses in the end… although that could be disputed… what was I saying? That I have ADHD? Probably that. Grimdark means writing imperfect people who make mistakes. Some of those people try their best to be good, some just want to win at any cost. I sometimes think of grimdark as literary fantasy, because it’s character-based, and the most important thing is to turn ‘characters’ into people.

Over four years with 34 months of breaks for mental health crises. I started in 2020 and then bumped into massive obstacles over and over. Too much life was happening at me. In 2023, I only completed one short story and one draft of Land that I sort of vomited out, banging on the keyboard until I got to the end. The real work was all done between January-September 2024.

Choices have consequences.

For me, personally, it’s knowing when to stop. I’m a perfectionist, so it’s never good enough. I have to force myself to accept that it’s good enough now, and it might be better a year from now, but I’d like to publish another book by then, also a good enough one. But the temptation to make just a few small changes even after the book has been proofread (or published) is very strong…

Land is a second book in a series, so if you’ve read Children and enjoyed it, Land is a must-have. If you’re interested in Iceland, Norse lore, or Icelandic elves – the Hidden Folk – you might wish to start with Children or just read its summary on my website. You’ll be rewarded with a reverse romance that starts with HFN and continues towards HNA, lives that change, some of them ending either horribly or hilariously, and Iceland painted in a very different light than you’ll find on postcards and online.

I can only listen to music I either know by heart, or to silence. When the neighbours’ kids get loud, I listen to white noise on my noise-cancelling earbuds. I don’t have a soundtrack for Land, but Taylor Swift’s folklore and evermore would be the closest, because I played both those records until they became a comfy aural blanket.

Sometimes, when I get stuck, I have to lie down. I have autistic shutdowns anyway. Those are, I call them, brainstorming shutdowns. I spend ten minutes in the dark, earplugs in, under a weighted blanket, and when it’s finished I delete the last few paragraphs and write what I didn’t know ten minutes earlier.

Mostly, on the living room sofa, or as I prefer to call it – my nest. My first book received a gold medal. It hangs on a standing lamp in such a way that every time I look up from the laptop, I see it. I have massive impostor syndrome, so having something tangible to look at helps.

Oooh. I have a full cast for each of my books, so I have to think for a minute… *the minute stretches to two, three…* I’d like to be Hënan, one of the Hidden Folk. He’s a bit bear-shaped, kind, and quiet. I’m good at those things.

Once the owl stops sobbing and giggling at the same time, he says “oh dear, I’m so sorry. FOR THE CHARACTERS. You’re such an ass. Why doesn’t Odin have owls instead of ravens? Where’s book three?”

A big thank you to Bjørn Larssen for sharing his writing life with us and for a wonderful interview.