Author: Lene Fogelberg

(Sweden)

Written by Lene Fogelberg on January 1, 2016. Posted in Blog. 4 Comments on (Sweden)

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you had a magical Holiday and New Years Eve and that this new year 2016 will bring many happy, healthy days to all!

To say that we are enjoying ourselves in Sweden would be an understatement. We eat as much favorite food and goodies that we can possibly fit into our bellies, meet as many friends as we can fit into the days and go for long walks in the woods and by the sea, filling our lungs with the salty ocean air.

I love how my small home town on the Swedish West Coast is located by the sea. So many childhood memories of jumping from cliff to cliff and picking little purple flowers in the cracks of the stones!

Even in wintertime there is something magical about the sea: the nuances of grays, layer by layer until the gray sea turns into a gray sky.

This is Sweden! Red cottages with white trims and the jagged horizon of the forest enclosing it all.

Oh, and I have to tell you about the small book event we held for readers in the Gothenburg area! It was a wonderful evening and I am so happy for everyone who attended, for Dorotea who moderated the Q&A session, for Alexandra who opened her home and for my sister Anna who prepared all the delicious food! What an amazing evening we had together!

And here we are! Do you notice the Wall Street Journal Best Seller-sticker I have on my copy of my book? 🙂 !!!!! Yay! I got the stickers just before we left Jakarta, the very day we left in fact, and I can still barely believe it! Woo-hoo!

Wishing you beautiful days ahead and once again, thank you from all my heart for all the support this past year! I truly appreciate it so very much!

Love and hugs,

Lene

(Change)

Written by Lene Fogelberg on December 16, 2015. Posted in Uncategorized. 12 Comments on (Change)

Time flies so quickly! I can barely believe that four years of living in Jakarta have already passed. As I am writing this our house is being emptied by the movers, lifting the boxes containing all our things into a huge truck that will carry them to the container, in which they’ll be shipped to Malaysia. My husband is at the house, keeping an eye on things and doing some last-minute packing, while I am at the Hotel Dharmawangsa, feeling very nostalgic and slightly philosophical over the changes taking place in our lives.

Here is the view from my hotel balcony, captured this morning. I can’t believe we are to leave Indonesia already! And I have to confess I am quite nervous about the Swedish winter. (We will spend two weeks in Sweden before going to Malaysia.) I haven’t been in Sweden since last January, and I was SO COLD!! Brrrr… Our Indonesian friends traveling with us at that time didn’t seem half as cold as I was! And before that I had not been home in two years, so it is long overdue.

An hour after I took the photo, the monsoon started, reminding me it is rainy season, and of the inevitable change that is always taking place.

Oh, how can I leave this enchanted island where even the trees have flowers in their hair?

But I have to look forward and keep going! Onward! Towards new adventures! I hope you will be coming with me. ♥

And oh, did you see that Beautiful Affliction made it to The Wall Street Journal Best Seller list? Number three among Non-fiction e-books for the week ending Nov. 29! I am still pinching my arm every morning when I wake up! 🙂

!!!!!!! 🙂

Thank you for all the support, I appreciate it soooo much!

With Love,

Lene

PS. If you have read Beautiful Affliction and liked it, I would be tremendously happy if you would consider leaving a review or a rating on Amazon and/or Goodreads. It would mean a lot to me. Thank you.

(Hope)

Written by Lene Fogelberg on December 1, 2015. Posted in Blog. 12 Comments on (Hope)

Hello Friends! Here is a picture of Beautiful Affliction in my book shelf, next to some of the books on writing I have read and re-read the past years (and an Indonesian wood carved elephant 🙂 ). It is still a strange feeling, seeing and holding a copy of my book! I remember when it was still a dream I hoped would one day come true, and here it is, page after page of materialized dreams.

This past month has been super busy, we have traveled to Kuala Lumpur to find a place to live come January (found an apartment that I like, yay!), we have traveled to Singapore to visit my hand doctor who concluded I needed surgery, which he performed that very afternoon (not yay). So the past few weeks my right hand has been in a bandage, not ideal for a writer, or for anyone for that matter. (My goodness, typing with only my left hand takes forever!) (If you wonder what happened to my hand, I can’t tell you, because I don’t remember! Apparently I had some sort of accident where a ligament was torn off, but I can’t remember when it happened, which my hand doctor finds very strange, but explains with my high tolerance for pain. Hm, I don’t like pain.)

Something that warmed my heart tremendously was to see Beautiful Affliction climb the charts on Amazon, the week before Thanksgiving. The book was even number one in Canada! Imagine that!

I love Canada!! ♥ And all of you wonderful readers who so generously recommend my book, I can’t thank you enough! ♥ Beautiful Affliction also climbed to number one on Amazon USA, kindle Memoirs! And number 24 out of all books in USA, I could barely believe it!

Wishing you a wonderful December with beautiful winter weather or cooling rainy season, depending on where you are.

With love,

Lene

(Grateful)

Written by Lene Fogelberg on November 3, 2015. Posted in Blog. 18 Comments on (Grateful)

I am just filled with gratitude as the feedback from readers comes in; grateful that they are reading Beautiful Affliction, grateful that they take the time to tell me about their experiences of reading my book, and grateful for amazing accounts like these:

A mother with grown children tells me she will share Beautiful Affliction with all her children and their spouses.
A man borrows Beautiful Affliction from the local library, but loves the book so much he wishes it for his birthday, and receives it as a gift from his wife.
A woman sends copies of the book to her sisters after reading it.
A reader starts copying quotes from the book while reading, but gets so caught up in the story, he can’t bring himself to stop reading to write the quotes down, telling me, they were everywhere! He says he will read the book again, and that time write the quotes down.
A reader tells me her copy of the book is dog-eared and underlined all the way through after she read it.
A reader friend here in Jakarta (from New Zealand) has his mother-in-law for visit (from the US). As he is reading Beautiful Affliction, she comes into the room and asks what book he is so immersed in. He tells her the title, and she asks to see the cover, then exclaims: Oh, I’ve read that one! We read it in our book club in Seattle!
A reader tells me she brings Beautiful Affliction to work, and whenever someone asks about it, she tells them how much she loved it.
Several readers say they read the book in one sitting, since they could not put it down (in some cases resulting in lack of sleep 🙂 ).
A reader used stickers to mark sentences she wanted to remember, but ran out of stickers.
Beautiful Affliction has been read on vacations, in kitchens, on numerous couches, on porches, on trains, on airplanes, in hotel rooms, and even on a boat!

I can’t tell you how much this means to me! After years of writing (not to mention living the story), wondering what future readers will think, it is such a joy to receive these accounts from readers.

Oh, and on a side note, I can’t tell you how many messages I have received from readers telling me how wonderful my husband is! 🙂 And yes, I agree, he totally is! ♥

With love,

Lene

(I ♥ Book Clubs)

Written by Lene Fogelberg on October 24, 2015. Posted in Blog. 6 Comments on (I ♥ Book Clubs)

I am very happy to report that several book clubs in the US, Canada and Sweden have chosen to read Beautiful Affliction, something I consider a tremendous honor. I only wish I could be there when they discuss my book after reading it, oh, to be a fly on the wall and hear what they are saying! 🙂

As a helpful tool for book clubs that meet to discuss my book, I have added a new page on my website, called: Reading Group Discussion Questions on Beautiful Affliction , and it can be found on the BOOK page, which has a link on the main bar above. I hope the questions can spark discussion, even though a book club that contacted me assured me they would have plenty to talk about! 🙂 Either way, the discussion questions are up there, and can be used by anyone who feel they might need material on my book, however, I do feel I have to raise a spoiler alert for people who have not yet read Beautiful Affliction.

I also want to thank my amazing friend and writer Angelica Hagman who helped me compile the discussion questions! Angelica did an excellent job putting together thoughtful questions that I feel are wonderful food for thought for anyone who have read the book.

If you are part of a book club, or if you know of a book club, please don’t hesitate to choose or recommend reading Beautiful Affliction, and I would be happy to assist in any way I can. I already have a Skype meeting planned with a book club in Canada, and if I am in the same country and within reasonable distance I would be happy to visit when you discuss my book.

With Love,

Lene

PS. Don’t miss the wonderful review of Beautiful Affliction on award-winning writer Robin L. Flanigan’s website!

(In Bali!)

Written by Lene Fogelberg on October 15, 2015. Posted in Blog. 10 Comments on (In Bali!)

Greetings from Bali! We have a lot to celebrate: the girls’ holiday from school, my “second birthday” (which was last week: the 7th anniversary of my heart surgeries), and one month since the official publication day for Beautiful Affliction! In addition, it is Islamic New Year in Indonesia, which means that everything lined up so that we could book a vacation in Bali this week! Woo-hoo!

These past weeks have been pretty hectic, and I am so happy my husband realized I needed some ocean air in my face and golden sand under my feet… It was so sweet of him to pull me away from the buzz of Jakarta (aka the noise from the construction site behind our house!) to this wonderful island where you just have to relax and listen to the soothing music of the waves breaking against the coral reef.

Look at that! Even Beautiful Affliction is relaxing on the beach, and it is well deserved I have to say! Well done, little book, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell my story, for helping me find the words to tell it, and for carrying it out into the world with your fragile paper heart mended by needles. You deserve a fresh coconut drink and to look up at the blue sky peering through the shadows of the branches.

And thank you dear blog readers for coming with me on this crazy journey of publishing my debut book! I appreciate it more than I can say and I just want to give each one of you a big hug!

A special greeting this week also to the book club members in Philadelphia who have read Beautiful Affliction as their October book and will meet today to discuss it! Thank you for choosing my book, and I wish I could be there to listen to your discussion! 🙂

With love,

Lene

(7th Anniversary)

Written by Lene Fogelberg on October 8, 2015. Posted in Blog, Updates. 16 Comments on (7th Anniversary)

I was woken up this morning by my husband and the girls singing Happy Birthday and carrying a tray with fruit salad and apple juice. The anniversary of my heart surgeries have become my “second birthday” and there is nothing better than to celebrate with my family and apple juice! (Readers of Beautiful Affliction know why.)

This year is extra special since my book just came out! Wow, that morning seven years ago I could never have imagined that one day I would hold a book in my hand, telling my crazy story!

Today seven years ago chapters 38–40–42–44–46–48–50 in Beautiful Affliction took place. I didn’t realize until now that so many chapters of my book happen during a single day! And what a day it was, I will never forget hugging my small girls goodbye before leaving them with my mother, as my husband drove me to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for my heart surgery.

(My husband just called and told me that he booked a trip to Bali next week! Yay!! So instead of a book tour I will relax on the beach and gaze out to the horizon, my absolute favorite view.)

I am so very grateful that my life was saved during my planned open-heart surgery on October 8, all those years ago, and then again thanks to an emergency open-heart surgery on October 9. After having been so close to death, it felt like I was reborn through the miracles that led me to this dramatic climax to years of fatigue, chest pressure and difficult breathing. This re-birth is what we celebrate on October 8, my second birthday.

It feels pretty great, being seven years old. 🙂 Last time I visited my cardiologist in Singapore, he couldn’t see any wear and tear on my new heart valve, so the wearing-out process seems to be slow, which is a good thing! It means I will not need the next heart surgery until many more years, hopefully, so I am very happy about that.

Thanks for stopping by and take care of your hearts my friends,

Lene

PS. If you’ve read my book, Beautiful Affliction, and liked it, it would mean the world to me if you would consider leaving a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Thank you.

(Change of Plans)

Written by Lene Fogelberg on October 7, 2015. Posted in Blog, Updates. 6 Comments on (Change of Plans)

Wow, there’s so much going on that the big book tour I had planned in October, spanning across Asia–Sweden–Philadelphia, USA, turned out to not perhaps be the best idea. We’re holding off on that for now, since I am completely busy answering interviews, appearing on radio (last night), writing articles and guest blog posts, not to mention answering readers who contact me daily with questions and letters and just to tell me how much they love Beautiful Affliction! In other words, a wonderful way to be kept busy!

My publisher has already planned a US book tour for me and fellow fall authors, but, it is just too much for me right now, especially also with our upcoming move to Malaysia in December. Wish I could go though, to meet readers and my wonderful “Pub sisters” that I have gotten to know this last year!

But we are actually planning to go back to Sweden around Christmas (when we are in between houses and our furniture are shipped in a container), and I have already started dreaming about Swedish Christmas food! 🙂

If you want to be kept in the loop on everything Beautiful Affliction, I try to post the big news on the page called NEWS, found on the main bar above. There’s also a lot happening over at Goodreads and Amazon, and the Swedish online booksellers, which you can check out!

For me it was a big deal to be published as main feature on Writer’s Digest, which I have been following for years. Writer’s Digest is the world’s largets platform for writers with 700 000 monthly visitors and it was such a joy to wake up one morning to find that they had published my article “5 Steps To Writing in Your Second Language”. (It’s about Joseph Conrad, the Swedish Chef, and me.)

Under NEWS you can also find author interviews, excerpts from my book, and several online lists that include Beautiful Affliction. For example it was great fun to see my book listed as the most anticipated memoir for fall on Buzzfeed!

Can’t believe my book has already been out in the world for three weeks! Time is flying by!

Thanks for all your support,

Lene

PS. Here comes the begging I have been warning you would come: if you have read my book, would you please consider leaving a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads? Every rating and review means a lot to me. Thank you. End of begging for this time.