It is snowing outside; I am sitting inside. Warm, healthy, and rested. It is well below zero and I watch the snowflakes dance through the air. Perfect crystals making tiny pirouettes before they land on each other, forming a white, flawless blanket. A friend just sent me a video of his cat sitting by the window, trying to chase them. One by one. Life seems to be paused. As if somebody pushed a button and put the big game of life on hold. Though this winter is a Pause unlike anything we have lived through, it seems to me that the state of being paused is not entirely new. Winter…

At writing workshops, tutors often use every day items or photographs as a writing prompt. It always amazes me what complex stories people can spin from the simplest things. When I come home for Christmas, I often feel as if I am entering the House of Prompts. My parents’ house is full of things that were inherited from my grandparents, that belonged to my father or that were a gift from someone we once knew. There is an emotional connection, a story how they entered this house, but usually no one to ask for a full account. Inevitably, we build their stories according to our own memories – and imagination…

About 5 years ago, when I started creative writing courses, my writing tutor recommended this book to me: In Other Words is written by the US bestselling author Jumpa Lahiri about her taking a vow to learn to write in Italian. She wrote fiction only in Italian for years. The book became a bestseller, so you may know the story. And obviously this could be a book for me as I also chose to write fiction only in a language that is not my mother tongue. For some reason, I never picked it up until now. Like people and lovers, every book has a fixed time to enter your life,…