Origins
A Wish Upon the Water: A Labor of Love
This story had its beginnings on a crisp June morning in Skellefteå, Sweden. After a brisk run, I stopped to rest on a sun-warmed wooden jetty and watch as the magnificent Skellefteå River flowed swiftly past. I couldn’t seem to get enough of the warmth. The next morning as I went for my run, Maja’s story came to me.
A Wish Upon the Water
Continued from above...
Inspired by the history of the local heritage site and “church town” known as the Bonnstan which burned to the ground in 1835, my mind let loose with possibilities. I immediately jotted down a first chapter, but set it aside, since I was working on another manuscript at the time.
A few years later, when the world closed down during the pandemic, I was living in Fairbanks, Alaska—a city very similar to Skellefteå in vegetation, climate, and latitude, near the Chena River. Each time I saw the glistening water, those feelings of never getting enough warmth (physically and emotionally) came back to me in a rush, and I decided it was time to write Maja’s story.
Unable to travel because of global travel restrictions, I needed to channel all the Swedish spirit I could get without actually traveling there, so I began baking all our Swedish family recipes. As I tried again and again to perfect the pastries, they worked themselves into the plot like magic.
I also began corresponding with a historian and curator of the Skellefteå Museum to help with my research. Most of the resources he provided for me were in Swedish, so I enlisted my mother-in-law’s help with translation and my father-in-law’s help with details about salmon fishing, logging, and farming in the old days.
The resulting manuscript is something special and miraculous to me.
Editors
To see this manuscript, please contact Cathie Hedrick-Armstrong at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.