Bob Tillsman asked Katarina Bivald:

When and where would you write? In the bookshop, outside or at home? Do you write listening to anything?

Katarina Bivald I write anywhere and anytime, but for some reason, I work best before lunch. I usually work at my kitchen table, with a view of tiny Swedish birches, but if I get stuck I prefer to write with other people around me: at cafés or bars. I have yet to write anything good at a library. It's not that I don't like libraries, of course, it's just that the quiet concentration there weighs down on me until I can't think of anything at all.

I listen to music, and mostly it's country. Something about country songs reminds me of novels: how they are often little stories in themselves. How they focus on problems and unhappiness. And how they often involve some sort of change - if nothing else, getting in that car and keep driving.

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