The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Welcome to The Conversation with Nadine Matheson, where best-selling author of the 'Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley' series Nadine Matheson sits down with fellow authors for insightful, honest, and entertaining conversations. Each episode dives deep into the world of writing, from the publishing journey to overcoming challenges, the experiences that shape their work, and anything else that comes up when great minds come together. Whether you're a fan of gripping stories or curious about the life behind the books, 'The Conversation' promises thought-provoking chats and moments of inspiration.
If you'd like to be a guest or have a message or question, reach out to us at theconversation@nadinematheson.com.
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The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Martta Kaukoren: The Voice in the Night: A Writer's Awakening
What happens when the voice of a character is so powerful it shatters years of self-doubt? Finnish author Maarta Kaukonen never thought she could write a novel until the night she heard her protagonist Ida, a 20-year-old serial killer, speak to her so clearly that she had to get up and record the words. This moment transformed everything for Kokkonen, who struggled with learning disabilities as a child and spent years believing becoming an author was impossible.
In this captivating conversation, Maarta and I explore how the limiting stories we tell ourselves can prevent us from pursuing our dreams, and how sometimes the right catalyst can break through those barriers. Maarta Kaukonen's journey from film critic to internationally published author (her debut "Follow the Butterfly" has now sold in 15 countries and been optioned for television) demonstrates that creative paths rarely follow straight lines.
Can she cure a killer?
Renowned therapist Clarissa Virtanen isn't afraid to explore the darkest side of humanity. Haunted by the death of a young patient, she will do whatever it takes to save the most vulnerable.
But when Ida - angry, damaged and seemingly suicidal - walks into her office, Clarissa may have met her match. For Ida has secrets. Murderous secrets, which mark her like a bloodstain.
Somehow, Clarissa must find the key to unlock Ida's past. So she makes a bargain with her - six months to stop Ida taking her own life. But what if she has entered a game more deadly, and more evil, than she could ever imagine?
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I didn't tell anyone that I am writing. The only person who knew about my writing a novel was my husband. I didn't tell a soul. I didn't tell any of my friends, so I only told them when I got the publication.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Conversation with Nadine Matheson. As always, I hope that you're well and I hope that you had a good week. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Conversation with Nadine Matheson. As always, I hope that you're well and I hope that you had a good week. I had a good week Last week. I was teaching the baby lawyers and if you can hear the joy in my voice, it's because they were so much fun. They were so enthusiastic and, believe me, when you're teaching, having enthusiastic students, half your job is done. So they were an absolute joy and if they're listening, I wish them all the luck in the world. And secondly, why was last week a good week?
Speaker 2:Oh, I announced the title of book four in the Inspector Angelica Henley series. Book four is called the Shadow Carver and it's out next year, so it'll be out in February 2026. I know, I know it's quite a while and I've already had people saying to me why do I have to wait so long? But believe me, it will be worth it. It will be absolutely worth it. I'm very excited about it. It's crazy to think that I'm actually four books in with this series, especially if you've listened to me on this podcast, or even if you've read read my sub stack articles, I didn't even think that I was even going to be writing a series. I just had the first book, the Jigsaw man, and when my agent asked me, is there a second book, I just said yes, because you know you want an agent and you want a deal. So I said yes. But anyway, here we are, four books in, and book four in the Inspector Angelica Henley series is called the Shadow Carver and I will let you know when you can pre-order it. Right, let's get on with the show.
Speaker 2:This week I'm in conversation with Finnish author Marta Kokkonen and her debut novel, follow the Butterfly is out on Thursday or, if you're listening to this, next week, it's already out and you should make sure you get a copy. And one of the reasons why I love this conversation with Marta is because we had a really good chat about, I suppose, imposter syndrome and the stories you tell yourself the stories you tell yourself that stopped you from doing something, and then the stories that you have to tell yourself in order to push you into doing something. So I thought it was a really good discussion about that and also about her journey. So in this week's episode, marta Koken and I talk about how the strength of her main character's voice forced her to write when the advice write what you know doesn't quite work, and how she believed that she could never be an author. Now, as always, sit back or go for a walk and enjoy the conversation. Marta Kokanen, welcome to the conversation.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Nadine. I'm so excited to be here and thank you so much for having me here.
Speaker 2:You are extremely welcome. Honestly, she's so excited. If you saw her before we started recording, she was just jumping up and down.
Speaker 1:I'm still stumping, jumping on my chair. I'm still stumping, chomping on my chair.
Speaker 2:All right. So, martin, my first question for you, right, it's basically, it's based off the book. So your debut is called Follow the Butterfly and in the book we're in the mind of a serial killer. So my question is going to follow, because we're always told like the number one advice for writers for writers, especially when they're starting now is to write what you know. But I'm thinking you know where I'm going. So we're told to write what we know. But, um, you know, like me, I write about serial killers. I'm I'm not a serial killer. I haven't even met one, as far as I know. So how did you put yourself in the mind of a serial killer?
Speaker 1:I'm just thinking here. Should I tell you all? Is any Finnish police officers listening to this podcast of yours? Should I make a full confession of all my crimes, or should I just say no, no, no, no. I have invented everything. Is only my imagination.
Speaker 2:Were you interested in it before, though, like where did it come from?
Speaker 1:My main character, ida, who is a 20-year-old serial killer. She came to me quite surprisingly when I was in my bedroom lying on my bed and trying to fall asleep, when I suddenly heard her voice and she told me the first few lines of my book. And because you are an author writer also, you know that books are getting heavily edited and they change shape. But still I had a few first lines from Ira, as they were when she told me those lines. So they are still in the book and this story sounds, maybe, maybe sounds a little bit strange, but there was a reason I heard her voice and the reason was that I had been reading psychological thrillers for years and years and years and everything just had to come out of my system somehow. And that was the way they you know, all those psychological thrillers I had read they came out of my system with these first lines of my book.
Speaker 2:You know, because when I was doing my research into you, because I didn't know that you're a film critic, like that's your job. Yeah, so you're a film critic in Finland and was writing something that you always wanted to do, or was film. Has that always been like your first love?
Speaker 1:um, I think that every journalist and film critic wants to be a writer, but I'm a realist or even a pessimist, so I knew that I would never be an author, because I thought that I could never invent an interesting plot that goes from the page one to the page 400. I never couldn't invent characters that feel real, so I always thought that I would never write a book. But then this voice came and I had to do it.
Speaker 2:So all the years you've been a film critic, all the years you've been working and even going back to, I say, being a kid, being in school, you never once thought being an author for me. You just thought I could just never be able to do it.
Speaker 1:It was my dream in a way, but I always understood that I couldn't do it. I always thought that it was too much hard work for me, because writing is hard and writing film criticism is hard. It's hard enough and compared to these huge books people are writing. My book is 400 pages, so I thought that I couldn't do that, but when I heard the voice, I got up from my bed, dictated those lines on my iPhone and the next morning I started to write and I knew that I will write this book so hold on right for all these years?
Speaker 2:no, because I just I find it fascinating because it all comes down to the stories that we tell ourselves and you told yourself a story that it's too hard to write a book. It's too. And don't get me wrong, I remember like in the I say, in the early days I would read a book and I would think, oh, my god, I'd love to write a book. And then the next sentence in my head would be well, how do I, how would I get from page one to two, as you said, page 400? It's like, how am I going to fill out the middle? How am I going to craft a story? How am I going to create interesting characters? All of that can seem yeah exactly yeah, so I understand it.
Speaker 2:But then I find it fascinating that you could be telling yourself all these stories for years, do a completely different I say a completely different career still in that creative field, because you're still writing. But then you have a voice during the night and then you set up and you record it into your. You say you dictate it and then off you go.
Speaker 1:And then, when I started, it was really I knew immediately that this will be a book, and it will be a book that I would have myself always wanted to read. That was my goal. I didn't think about any readers or publishing houses, the industry at all. I was thinking about writing a book for myself.
Speaker 2:I think that's one of the most important things to do in the early days, because I can't remember what I was doing, whether I was listening. I know I was listening to someone yesterday. Um, I was watching a video and I think it was Harlan. I've got.
Speaker 2:I've forgotten his last name now um yeah, his last name got out of my head and he was talking about writing to trends, because you know psychological thrillers. There was a time when I said every book was a variation of a girl on something. So it was a girl in the window, girl on the train, a girl on the bus, and then obviously be a lot of writers. Oh, I need to write a book and like that. And he was basically saying, yeah, you can write to a trend now, but the fact is it might take you a year to write a book and like that.
Speaker 2:And he was basically saying, yeah, you can write to a trend now, but the fact is it might take you a year to write the book and then it's going to take I mean he was being very generous it's going to take you another year to get published. I would say it could take you two years to get published once you sign with a publisher. So within that trend coming about is and you write in the book and it being published, it could be up to three years and by the time your book is on the shelves, that trend has disappeared. So he was saying don't publish to trends, so just tell write the story that you want to write to tell the story that you want to tell, and that's what you did yes, yes, that exactly.
Speaker 1:I've been thinking those thoughts also, that you have to think about what you like and if you like something enough, I think that readers will also like the same thing. But my book's first English title you know when we were going around and thinking what would be named the book in English was Butterfly Girl.
Speaker 2:Who changed it? Who changed it?
Speaker 1:to follow the butterfly it was my agent, who doesn't work as an agent anymore, but she invented this follow the butterfly because she thought that follow is, you know, forceful imperative. So it's better than butterfly, girl.
Speaker 2:Weren't you ever surprised? Because, as I said, you've been. You've been telling yourself this story for years that you can't write like. There's no way you can start a book and finish a book and fill those missing pages in between. So were you surprised when you sat down and found yourself writing in this novel and telling this story? Because I think it would surprise me especially when you get to the end.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, I was very surprised and also I didn't tell anyone that I am writing. The only person who knew about my writing a novel was my husband. I didn't tell a soul. I didn't tell any of my friends, so I only told them when I got the publication. You know the deal to publish the book and before that I did it in secrecy. So it was a huge surprise for everyone, but mostly myself, of course, what did you tell yourself when you wrote the end?
Speaker 2:Because I remember that the very first book I wrote was God, I think way back in, I can't remember now 2004, 2005. I wrote this book and I've been writing it for years and I finally wrote the end. And that moment of oh my god, I've written a book. Was it the best book in the world? No, I'm under no illusion. It was not the best book in the world at all, but I think it was just about was not the best book in the world at all? But I think it was just about getting used to using those muscles. And then, I don't know, getting used to, you know, putting myself in, sitting there and actually finishing something and going completing it from beginning to end, but that moment of oh my god, I wrote a book. Did you have that moment?
Speaker 2:and when you hold it in your hand, you have no but before you, yeah, but before you even get there, before you even get to you know, doing your unboxing video, when you've just written those last words on the screen and I said for years you've told yourself well, I can't do this. So what was that moment like for you? Uh it was.
Speaker 1:It was huge moment because it took four years to write the novel. Four years, four years because I do it. Um, I was uh working at yeah, I don't work as a film critic anymore, I stopped a year ago, but then I was still working full-time and writing on evenings and weekends. So it took four years and I was 45 years old when the book came out, so quite old for an or a debut author.
Speaker 2:I'm shaking my head right. I'm saying no, it's, it's not too old, because I did this, not that I did this thing. Um, on my other, on my sub stack, I have like another mini podcast called the pivot. Last week I was talking about, I think, the stories you tell yourself as an author about. You know you need to find the right space to write your book, you need the right software program or you need to find you. You told yourself all these little things that you need before you can write your book. Or you're looking at your age and you're saying you know what? I think I'm too old and all of that is just a load of nonsense, really because you're never.
Speaker 2:You're never too old to write a book, because I mean even okay, the book I started writing which will never see the light of day. So that was back. That was like nearly 20 years ago. So, oh god, I would have been 28, 27, I would have been 27, and then my book I self-published the sisters. I think I was, I think I was 39, 38 or 39, and then the jigsaw man. When that was published, that was in 2000, 2021. So what's that? I can't even count today. So I think I was 44 when the jigsaw man was published you look so much younger than me.
Speaker 1:I thought you are at least 15 years younger than me not for a long time.
Speaker 2:My knees hurt and my back hurts. But the point is, I think you know we tell ourselves it all goes down to this. You know we continuously tell ourselves these stories. You know we can't write. You know I we can't write. You know I'm too old. And none of it is true. That's what I just have to come back on.
Speaker 1:Yes, but in my case the reason was that I have these learning disabilities, that when I went to school I couldn't learn to write or read, and we had this special education teacher who told me, teached me how to write and read. I had this special need and I only get very lousy numbers on the exams on school. And I still remember that, how it felt that you were always the one in class who couldn't do anything.
Speaker 1:I was bad at every subject at school. So that was. And I think that my teacher, if she heard now that I'm an author, she would be totally amazed. I think that she thought that I couldn't even go to, you know, college, let alone university. So that's the you know, know the trauma behind all this, and that's the reason I always thought that, uh, I can do this film criticism, I can do it well, I can write it very good, but I would never could write the novel.
Speaker 2:And still, still, in a way, I feel like I'm this very small child who can't do anything and everything is everyone is thinking about her, that she's a total loser which you are absolutely not, because even I would say, even being a film critic, I mean my film criticism basically comes down to I liked it, I didn't like it, there's lots of holes everywhere, the acting's terrible, oh I loved it, like that's that. That is the depth of my film criticism. But for you to have a successful career as a film critic and using that and also you know talking about your childhood and having to have special needs, having a special needs teacher, and then you're able to criticize, you're not just saying whether or not a film's good or bad, you're having to analyze that film and put that analysis into words. That everyone for me to, I don't know, old people, young people, all various classes of people can read, that critique and enjoy it and follow it and have their own opinion of it.
Speaker 1:So that is a special skill in itself, that's true, that's true, but I've tried to find this special education teacher but I haven't been able to find her. But I would really like to thank her because she teached me to write and read and it's an amazing thing that is it because I was very I was like seven or eight years old when I finally learned how to read and write, and I always hear those interviews about writers who are telling that I was only three years old when I started to read and I've been reading since and I just feel like like okay, you're extremely lucky, your life has been so easy compared to me. Of course, if you can read at three or four, four years old, of course you choose to become an author, but my path isn't being so straight, I have to tell you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think you'll find a lot of people, especially a lot of authors that I've spoken to on the podcast. You know their road, their path to being a writer, hasn't been a straight and narrow path. There's been ups and downs. You know they've done something completely different in their past or they've held on to dreams of being a writer, but they haven't done it until later on in life and that that is that is an unusual and you know, if you go back over the podcast, there hasn't been I don't think there's very few authors who haven't said they didn't know that being an author, being a writer, was a job that they could do. Because they didn do, because they didn't know any authors, they didn't meet any other writers until they became a published writer themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, everyone has his or her own difficulties in this profession.
Speaker 1:This isn't an easy one one for anyone, I think it's just also, I think, fascinating that you could hear a voice and that voice be so strong that it propels you to get up and completely, the way I see it, completely forget all those stories you told yourself and just get up and start to write yeah, I have to think that it must have been Aida who spoke to me, because when I was writing the book, when I started, I of course knew how it would begin, because I had heard those lines and I soon realized how it would end, but I didn't know how to get from the beginning to the end, and I think that Aida came to me and took me by the hand and led me there.
Speaker 1:She was so strong presence to me. I almost saw her standing with me when I was writing and afterwards, in every event, when someone has said something nasty about Ira, you know she's an awful person or something. I feel like she's there standing. Please don't talk to her like that. She's standing there and she hears everything and I have to defend her. So it has happened many times.
Speaker 2:But you know what? It's a good thing when readers have such a strong reaction to a character. That means you've done something right.
Speaker 1:That's true, that's true.
Speaker 2:Because I was going to ask you what came to you first. Was it whether it was the character or whether it was a scene that you saw in your head or whether it was a piece of dialogue? But you've already answered it because you said you heard her talking. Because even when and I'm asked about um Henley and and I say the jigsaw man, the first book I saw I saw Henley, I think about a whole two, two years before I even wrote the Jigsaw man. I just saw her and so she just came to me.
Speaker 2:I just saw this woman and I couldn't see her face. I never really see their faces, but I just saw the silhouette of this woman, oh, I said, standing outside boots on Lucian High Street, staring at Lucian Police Station, and I knew she had to go in there and I knew she worked there. But I also knew that she suffered some kind of trauma and that she was returning back to work after a period of leave. And that's how she came to me and she was just hanging around for two years until I found a story to put her in. So it's amazing how characters can come to us. I didn't hear her, but I saw her.
Speaker 1:But you heard Ida yes it's, it's really weird, but uh, it's also very clear when you think about that. I had been reading those psychological thrillers so much so everything came from my subconscious. I think I don't believe in any supernatural, natural things.
Speaker 2:I only believe in subconscious and everything came from there you don't have to answer because in follow the butterfly, because we've got multiple characters, because we've got Ida, we've got the um, we've got the psychiatrist and there's another character yeah, we've got Clarissa and because we've got a serial killer have going through therapy. I mean, I'm minimizing it, but that is like the basic tagline can you cure a serial killer? Did you ever have any therapy?
Speaker 1:so you can have that understanding the interest for this, uh, psychological psychology and therapy came from that one of my real life relatives was a psychologist specializing in children and young adults, and she's already retired because she's so old. But that was the reason I got interested in these things in the first place, and when I was young I even thought that I could study psychology in university psychology in university. But then I went to the library and I found the first, you know, the first book you had to read if you wanted to study psychology, and it was about structure of the brain. So I quickly slipped the book in the bookcase and thought no, this is not for me.
Speaker 2:I studied psychology at A-level, so from the ages of 16 to 18, and I remember my first psychology class. I was so disappointed because in your head you're basing your idea of studying psychology and what you've seen on TV and what you've seen in the movies and I'm not saying I thought I was going to be sitting in a room with Hannibal Lecter like or an equivalent of Hannibal Lecter, but I think I was. I hope I wanted to go straight in at the deep end, you know analyzing people's mind. But no, instead you've got to do with all the fearing. You're like this is just no, I'm not interested in Pavlov's dogs. It's like no, I want, I want to do, I want to do the good bits yes, yes.
Speaker 1:My relative was always saying to me that people want to study psychology and they don't understand. They have to understand maths and statistics. Oh yeah, that would have been for me.
Speaker 2:No, I couldn't do that no, the reason why I ask, I said I know it's a personal question because in my books, henley, she has PTSD and when I first started writing her I had. No, I've always been interested in therapy and I've always been like, oh, I'd like to go to therapy to see what it's like, but I didn't think I had any reason to go to therapy. So I think I learned about PTSD, obviously through my own research and I pull it into the books. But it was only when, not this year last year after I was in Grenada and going through the hurricane and then I came home and I said I can't be living in the United Kingdom where it rains and it's windy a lot and I'm getting triggered by the rain and the wind. I knew I had some form of PTSD from going through that hurricane and I had therapy new but a different perspective on therapy itself and how it and how trauma can affect, impact your characters.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry. I have already heard about your. Everything happened and I'm I'm so sorry about it. It's awful to hear and it's good that you could get therapy, because in Finland there is a problem that there are enough therapists anymore at the moment and it's very hard and even small children who had had an awful trauma experiences can't get therapy or have to wait for months to get to therapy, and that's that's an awful, awful thing to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's strange because you think you don't think about other places. In a sense because you know you live here Well, I live here, and everything's places. In a sense because you know you live here well, I live here and everything's so accessible. In a sense, yeah, so you know you could go to the NHS doctor and say I want to have therapy, I need to see a counsellor, and they put you away and so you can go on an app. You know there's so many different ways of accessing it, but isn't Finland supposed to be like one of the happiest places on Earth?
Speaker 1:That's true, but there's a huge paradox because in a way it is true, but in a way we have many mental health issues, we have suicides, we have all kinds of troubles, and I always think that Finland is the happiest place for happy people, but not so happy place for poor people, unemployed people or sick people, etc. Etc.
Speaker 2:You know it's such a good way of looking at it because I think you know people we can just fall in love with the headlines.
Speaker 2:It's like a lot of things in life. People just they don't read beyond the headlines. And they see the headlines and go oh, that's amazing, that's a good thing to know, that's a terrible thing to know, but they don't read behind that. Yeah, and you know. So now you're saying it's like well, yeah, it may be happy for me, but what about the other person who's going through so much? That happened?
Speaker 1:it's it's not happy for an unhappy person yes, and I, of course, because Finland has been the happiest country so long, it has won this title for many years, and I, every time when it's in okay, we are just the happiest country again. I always think that how it feels for people who are not so happy, poor people, to read from the papers again and again okay, I'm not happy, I should be happy because I live here in Finland and this is the happiest country, like it's, always makes you feel even worse if someone, if everyone else, has it good and you are the only person who is suffering. So it's the same situation here, I think.
Speaker 2:I don't know what. I'm not stunned. I am stunned maybe in a little way because I just never thought of it before and I say it's just, it's a condition of human beings that we can get blinded by the headlines and we don't look beyond it and, of course, because you haven't been to Finland, have you?
Speaker 1:No, of course you don't know, I have no idea. Of course you don't know. If you I have no idea, of course you think that great because it's a, um, well, welfare state, of course it's the happiest place. It's so easy to believe in this headline, and I'm saying that it is also true.
Speaker 2:You know, for some people it is true, yeah, but for a lot of people it won't.
Speaker 1:It won't be yeah, there are so many troubles, uh also but also many if I like this whole idea to put countries in a order of which is happiest and which is worse. I don't know what is it's good for the. You know if I mean it's good for tourism.
Speaker 2:But yes, I was just going to say that I suppose it puts pressure on people, because then I suppose it puts a pressure on you to be something that you're not, because if you're not happy and bouncing and jumping up and down all the time, but then the newspaper headlines are saying, no, you should be because you're living in a happy place, it puts the pressure on you.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's true, and if you're unhappy it it feels even worse if other people are happy around you.
Speaker 2:So I'm gonna ask you a question, right, you know, because we keep going, we keep, we keep going back to um Ida. I just, I know I keep saying I'm fascinated by it, but I just think it's just amazing how characters can come to us and how some people can hear a voice. Some people I said some people will see a scene. Some people have plotted out a whole book in their head before they've even sat down. So, bearing in mind, you haven't written anything before and I'm reading the opening lines from Follow the Butterfly and it says so. Heading is Ida. That's the chapter heading Ida.
Speaker 2:And then it starts there was too much blood in the room. No, I hadn't covered the walls with Beatles lyrics scrawled in my victim's gore, like the Manson family, but there was enormous stain on the rug. It wasn't heart-shaped, but the kind of stain that anybody taking an inkblot test would describe as a butterfly, because they didn't have the guts to say it looked like a vulva. So that's the opening paragraph of Follow the Butterfly and you're saying it was basically unchanged from how she spoke. And that's Ida speaking to you so don't even.
Speaker 2:You just say to yourself what the hell like? What is this? Because it wasn't. Hi, I'm Ida, I'm so happy to meet you. Here's a bunch of flowers. She's basically just telling you there's too much blood, things have gone wrong. There's too much blood, marta, help me.
Speaker 1:Okay, I might have been a little bit surprised when this happened. I would have been, but you should really have seen my husband's face when I got up and started to dictate those lines. He was looking at me because he was, of course, besides me and Beth. He was like, okay, here we go again the poor man.
Speaker 2:It wasn't even like you wrote it into your phone. You just sat up and started talking about blood and this man sleeping like what the hell, Marta?
Speaker 1:Talking about, talking about a need of therapy.
Speaker 2:Listeners, it's time for a very short break. If you're enjoying this conversation with Nadine Matheson and want to help keep the podcast going, why not buy me a cup of coffee? Your support goes such a long way in keeping these conversations flowing. Just check out the link in the show notes. Okay, so when you've written the book, you've finished the book. Much to your surprise, you've done the thing. Did you know what you were? I'm trying to find the right way to phrase this, but did you know what you were doing when you sent it out on submission? Did you know what to expect?
Speaker 1:um, I hate to say it, but yes, I did. I knew that I would get the publishing deal.
Speaker 2:It's awful to say this, but no, I don't think it's awful to say it no the reason why I say that, because I don't think it's a bad thing to ever be confident or ever. I said you know, I said we tell ourselves stories in order not to do things. I think there's nothing wrong in telling yourself stories in order to actually do something. Like I always say to the baby lawyers when I'm teaching them you have to tell yourself a story. You have to tell yourself a story to get into that courtroom for the first time and stand before a judge and make your application, and you have to tell yourself you know, I am the best, I can do this. I'm the best thing that walked into a room. You have to fool yourself. So I think there's nothing wrong in saying you know what? No, I knew I was going to get a deal, because you have to believe it.
Speaker 1:I thought that I had written the best book for myself, the book that I would love to read. So I thought that someone must like it also. The readers must like it, because I like it, and that's the. When you study journalism in Finland, they are always telling you that write a piece that interests yourself, so readers will be interested in it too. So I thought the same thing, and I have to also say to you that in Finland it is, of course, so much easier to get a publishing deal than in UK, so that was another reason I was so confident that why is that?
Speaker 2:is it just geography, because it's a smaller country?
Speaker 1:We have only five million people here and you have what.
Speaker 2:I don't even know. It's a silly number.
Speaker 1:Tens of millions of people. So that's the difference. So there are just much more, more less manuscripts going around in Finland, like compared to England.
Speaker 2:And when you sent it out, you sent out to agents. How quickly was the turnaround from sending out to agents and then getting the response saying we want the full manuscript?
Speaker 1:We have a completely different system in Finland. We don't have any agents for manuscripts in Finnish publishing, in Finnish publishing and I only got an agent when I wanted to sell my book to the outside world. But in Finland I just went to a publisher and gave him the script. Really, yes, we don't have any agents and that's a problem, because you have this agent system and you can get much more money out of manuscript because agent can do that. Publishing houses are competing for your manuscript. Yeah, in finland you get the standard couple of thousand euros per manuscript and there's no aging helping you. You should see her face now.
Speaker 2:I know I might have to show you this bit of our interview. I'll post it.
Speaker 1:No because it's just and I invite your system because you get lots and lots of money. We don't get anything unless we sell something to outside. You know other countries.
Speaker 2:I think the reason why my mouth is open because you know, I live in the UK. I live in the UK and I don't think the same is any different for whether you're in the UK or the States, or in Australia, and you're told you need to get an agent. You get an agent and then the agent then submits your manuscript to the publishers if they love it. Good happy days. You could go into an auction or someone just could make an offer. You could get a couple of thousand or you could get, if you're really really lucky, you could get the, the mythical seven figure deal. Yeah, but it's, everything is through an agent. And then to hear that your system you operate in is that you have no agents. You just have to go along with your manuscript and just say yes, will you read it and will you publish it.
Speaker 1:And we have like two main publishing houses in Finland.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing, even though you're a smaller country because I had to do my Googling and check so the UK has a population of over 67 million, right? And you said Finland is a small five million. So even though you've only got two publishers, no agents, let's say, all these two publishers are going to be receiving a large number of manuscripts, like it wouldn't make a difference if they were in the UK.
Speaker 1:It's all relative, relative, isn't it? I think that they, finnish publishers, are having like 300 manuscripts per year. I think this is very, very small number.
Speaker 2:I think that you must have thousands well easily, easily. I'm sure if I spoke to my agent that he would say he could easily probably receive 300 in a month. I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 1:So, but my novel went to auction only when they sold it to Germany.
Speaker 2:Right, so did that experience then? Well, first it's two questions. Did that experience surprise you? Because you've gone from you've had to submit your, your manuscript, to one to one, at one out of two publishers, or maybe you submit it to two publishers and then we go from that to you're now being and you could tell me if I got the numbers wrong, because they might have gone up you've been sold in what? 12 other countries and now you've been 15. I knew I'd got it wrong 15 countries. And you've been adapted, you've got your book has been optioned, so it's going to be turned into a tv show. So I forgot what my other question was now, but what is it? Is it a surprise when that happens? But how are you then prepared for that?
Speaker 1:What do you mean prepare?
Speaker 2:Like how do you, how do you prepare for such a drastic? You're just in Finland with your two publishers and then you go outside Finland and it becomes this I say this beast.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's's sure it is it. It sure is beast. But you can't really prepare for that at all. It was a huge shock after um you, everything happening so quickly that Germany wants to buy your manuscript, then your England, america Audible and so on, and it all happened in a couple of months, happened in a couple of months. It was quite uh. It felt like that I was looking from the outside. It felt that I was looking from the outside my book and all those things started to happen and I didn't realize they were talking about my book or me.
Speaker 2:It just felt totally surreal, even yeah, no, I understand that because I mean, I've said it loads of times, I should have it written down somewhere. But I always say, you know well, I say in one, the UK, and then where else is that you're given all the advice and you can find all the information about how to find an agent and submit to an agent, or even how to self-publish or even, depending on the publishers, submit directly to a publisher. So there's all the information out there, but there's very little information about what to do, how you can prepare for when for the moment when your book is submitted to publishers and you may go into an auction, for example, or then production companies, because production companies are seeing this is what I didn't even understand until it happened to me as well as your manuscript being sent out to publishers to me, as well as your manuscript being sent out to publishers, they're producers also looking at your manuscript. Because when the jigsaw man got option, I think, I think the jigsaw man got optioned.
Speaker 2:I got signed in march 29, 2019, I think, yeah, 2019 and the jigsaw man got optioned in july 2021. The manuscript hasn't even been edited yet. I haven't even gone. I was still waiting for my edits when I got optioned and I didn't know that that was. That was a possibility, that that could be a thing yes, and it is surreal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't prepare for this. No, at the emotional level, you can think about money, but you can't prepare for this. How you feel about all this happening?
Speaker 2:No, and I say it and I'm not saying it just to be like oh, this is what I did. I'm like I literally I had to go into lawyer mode. I had to put my lawyer hat on because I couldn't understand it, I couldn't comprehend it on an emotional level, so I had to deal with it on a very, very intellectual level and I could only do that by literally putting on my lawyer robes and my wig and just be like I need to approach this like a lawyer because I couldn't deal with it any other way, because it didn't make sense, because no one told me that. I was told that you know, you don't get deals anymore. All the deals are very, very small and just, yeah, not to expect anything when, even when, you go to agents. So that's why I was told not to expect anything.
Speaker 1:So I didn't expect anything yeah, unfortunately I'm not a lawyer, so I couldn't do anything. I was just staring at this book and staring at myself and didn't understand anything what was it?
Speaker 2:what was your experience? I'm watching the time because I could talk to you forever and Marta but what?
Speaker 2:was what was the experience like for you working with a translator? Because now your books you know it's been sold in 15 other countries and obviously you're gonna have your, your us I'll say your us and your uk um, adaptate editions are going to be totally different because even when I work with my us editors and the copyrights, there are things they in terms of language, that they'd want to, they'd want to change. So what was the experience like for you working with translators?
Speaker 1:I had a great experience with David Haxton, who translated the book from Finnish to English, because I had been reading American and British psychological thrillers and all my idols are from England or USA Gillian Flynn, paula Hawkins, etc. So when I saw the book in English and I read it through, it felt like this is the real book, not the edition. Yes, because I feel that I've written. So you have read my book. I have to ask you this Do you think it's a British book or a Finnish book?
Speaker 2:So the only reason why oh God See, I would have said my intellectual answer would have been said well, of course it's going to be a finnish book, because you make references to helsinki in finland like quite early on, yeah, but if you, yeah, but if I'm honest, if I'm really honest, if I hadn't known that, if I hadn't known that it was, it'd been translated, I think, automatically. I would have just thought it was just a british, british writer, which is which is a strange thing, to say.
Speaker 2:Least thing is, you have the luxury of being able to read your translated book. I mine got translated into Finnish. I can't read it, but I loved working with my, my Finnish translator was so much fun though he was really nice.
Speaker 1:I have seen your book in a library many times, so it's still there and going strong but no, that's really you know what.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because I've spoken to a few authors more recently who have written their books, and they've written their books in mind of it being adapted for TV, okay. And I've said to them do you think that you've written your book in a different way? Because in your mind you're thinking I want this to be adapted for TV. And they've said yes, and it's interesting that you've written your book, even though you know your native language is Finnish, but you wrote it in the mind of it being, what I'm saying in quotes, a British book uh, maybe I didn't have this in mind, but when I read the English edition I understood that of course it had to be translated in English.
Speaker 1:And in a way it's because I have stolen so many things from these great authors and it must show it must show in my book that I've been teething around 10 books and picking little pieces.
Speaker 2:well, it all comes back down to what you said and it all comes back down to the subconscious and what comes out. But you know what's funny? It's because when I'm working with the Finnish translator for the Jigsaw man, there are times when he would come back to me and he would say Nadine, there's no Finnish word for this, but did you have that same experience?
Speaker 1:or it didn't happen because subconsciously you're writing for I'm saying for the British audience the worst problem with Finnish language is that we have gender, gender neutral, uh Han, which means both she and he.
Speaker 1:So, that is a real trouble for every English translator and also the German, because in Germany they have I don't know, I can't remember now what they are, but they have this she and he, and in Germany they even have gender for every occupation. So my German translator had to ask me is this psychologist, she or he? Because they have this. You know, they put a little more letters after that, a little more letters after that. So that has been the biggest problem with my translators.
Speaker 2:You learn something new every day. What was Marta because you know I'm watching the time and it's flying by what was your reaction when you found out that you were being not, that you'd been picked, that you'd been selected for the Harrogate New Blood panel, the Critics New Blood panel last year?
Speaker 1:Okay, I have a confession to make I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm all here for confessions. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Because I heard. Of course I was overjoyed that I can come to this festival. But you might remember when we met the first time in the Paracade program launch in London in May, yes, and I told everyone that I'm going to the New Blood panel and everyone's jaw just dropped, you know, everyone was so shocked you are going to the New Blood. And I was like, yes, I am. And only then I realized that it's so huge thing. Of course my publisher told me beforehand that it's a huge thing, but I didn't really understand because I hadn't heard about Harrogate before. So when everyone was like, what I have to understand, ok, this will be great. And then when I was sitting there with Colin Walls and Claire Copeland and Johnny Sweet and our chair, ruth Ware, and there were 300 people in the tent sold out tent I was like it won't get. This is the best thing that has happened to me as an author.
Speaker 2:The thing is you don't realise I mean until you're in that industry you don't realise the significance and the impact of attending certain events and festivals and being selected to be on panels. And if you're a crime writer, you know being invited to attend Fexton's peculiar crime writing festival at Harrogate is one thing. But being a debut author and being selected to join, to be part of the what they call the New Blood panel, which is the panel of debut authors, that's a big achievement in itself and it's always one of the events at the festival that is always sold out. So for that saturday, what was it? Normally saturday afternoon, at 12 o'clock or one o'clock you can't find anybody because everyone's trying to get into the tent to see who, to see who the new blood is, because this is the thing you know, I think, sometimes new writers they could look at the industry and they're like, oh, my god, how am I going to fit in?
Speaker 2:How's there going to be space for me? Because there's so many writers, there's so many books. Or they're thinking, oh, they're thinking. Oh, you know, it's the same. I say the same old authors over and over and over again. They're not interested in anything new. But then you go to an event like Harrogate and you go to the new blood or you try and go to the new blood panel and it's sold out. Because people are interested in new authors, they are always looking for something different. So the fact that you've written a book where a psychologist, psychiatrist, is trying to see if she can cure serial killer, of course they're going to be interested in that and interested in you and your story and your amazing story.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I was afraid of this whole panel for months because, as you can already hear, I don't speak very good English, and this is also because of my learning disabilities. I think that I have studied and studied. I have even studied in university, but I still can't. I have huge problems.
Speaker 2:So it was so I was so scared to go on stage there. The only reason I'm trying to interrupt you, marta, is to say that I don't think anyone listening. And to anyone who is listening, or to everyone who is listening, you can tell me when you comment that Marta has absolutely no reason to be concerned about her ability to speak English, because you speak. Oh god, I don't want to sound patronising now, but there's nothing wrong with your English.
Speaker 2:You speak English really well we've done this entire conversation with no issues whatsoever, like I'm just. I'm just impressed with you, full stop. I'm impressed that you know I am seriously because you know you talked about having to have special education classes when you were younger, not being able to read or write until you were seven. And then not only haven't you know, you've learned to read or write, read and write. And then you've learned English, which they always say isn't an easy language to learn. You've learned English. You had this career as a film critic and then then you've written this book which has been sold in 15 countries and is going to be adapted for TV. You have, I think. I think you're amazing, quite frankly.
Speaker 1:But you are so correct when you say that we are always telling these stories to ourselves. And they are still these same stories I told myself when I was a small child and it's very hard to change. So, yeah, like you must understand what I mean no, I do.
Speaker 2:No, I do. I do because I understand that we can stop ourselves from doing so many things, doing the things that we really want to do because, as if we tell ourselves the story, we're not in the, we don't have to, we're not in the right place, we don't have the right computer, we don't have enough money in the bank or you know, I'm in the wrong job. You can tell yourself so many different. You got the wrong shoes so you can't go running. You just tell yourself so many different stories and a lot. And they are stories, they're fiction and it takes.
Speaker 2:So it does take a lot. It takes sometimes. It takes a lot of effort for you to pull yourself away from the story. It can either be someone has to physically drag you away or you just have to consciously make that decision. No, I'm just going to try. Or you hope for the voice to appear to you in the middle of the night and tell you a story. Marta, what would be? Because the question I don't normally ask this question, but it's one I'm going to start asking more regularly what would be your tip for writers new writers, existing writers? From your, from your own experience?
Speaker 1:listen only yourself. I think that in finland we have many schools that taught writing, and I think that when you're learning from these professors, or whatever teachers who are teaching you how to write, you can lose your own voice, and nothing is more important than your own voice as an author. No one would be interested in reading a million books written by Gillian Flynn. I would be but nobody else.
Speaker 1:I just say that it is good that we have many authors who everyone of them writes differently, so there is something for anyone of them writes differently, so there is something for anyone. But if you're, for example, study writing or read books how to write books so it's so easy to lose your own voice in the process yeah, I think it could be easy.
Speaker 2:I think it's good advice because I think it goes back to what we were talking about before. You know writing to trends. If you're so focused on the trend or what's currently at number one in the Sunday Times or New York Times bestsellers chart, you can lose your own voice by trying to replicate something else, and I think that's completely different to being inspired or being influenced. But if you're trying to replicate something, I don't think it's the right way to go and at the moment, as we have IE and IE is trying to write oh AI.
Speaker 2:AI, sorry, you said RE and I was like religion, class, religious education.
Speaker 1:Sorry, no, I didn't know what you meant. So we need true voices, because we have these computers writing for us and that's not you know. It's even more important to be human and have your own voice. I think that people are interested in your voice, not in computers you know what I?
Speaker 2:I say I spend a lot of time on YouTube, have you always? I'm always on YouTube. At least once a day. I go into YouTube and there are so many I don't know what I was looking at yesterday, but there were so many God, I don't know what you'd call them content creators so many YouTube shorts, all basically saying the same thing. You can be an author and publish your book in 24 hours. I can show you the best way how to use chat, gpt or how to use AI to write your next bestselling book and be published. And it's the dream of you. Can be published in 36 hours or a week, and I'm just like this is just so ridiculous. But how many people are just going for that? Because one is. You know it's an easy way of achieving your dream, but it just, it just sells the false.
Speaker 1:It's a false story yes, but they just think it's normal. Who wants to read a book written with?
Speaker 2:I can't, oh my god, I when chat gpt first. Yes, sorry, no, it's awful. When chat gpt. You know, when all the noise started being made about chat gpt and people using chat gpt to write books and I know a lot of us did it I thought, well, let me see what this chat gpt is about, and I did the whole. I want you to write a book based on x, y and z in the style of nadine matheson. It splurges out this thing and I call it a thing, and I spent. I was looking at going what on earth is this? It was hysterical. It was hysterically bad, hysterically bad.
Speaker 2:But you know, a lot of people are just looking for an easy option. I think that's the problem is that there are people who they want you know, they see the journey, they want to be a writer and they're looking at the books on the shelves and all they're seeing is the books on the shelves. They're not thinking about the work in order to get there and they want to avoid that. And I suppose they're looking at AI and thinking well, I said that's that it will help me. It's a tool, but you need you say, you need to hear, you need your voice. You don't need AI's voice. You need your voice. You need Marta's voice. Well, ida's voice, right, marta? I'm going to ask you your last four questions. Are you ready? Yes, okay. So are you an introvert or extrovert, or a hybrid of the two?
Speaker 1:I guess that I'm a hybrid because I enjoy company when I travel abroad. I always ask my husband to travel with me, but he very, very often doesn't want to come, so I don't ask my friends to come, I go by myself. That makes me a hybrid, maybe because, yes, I don't want to make any compromises when I'm abroad, I just want to go to any museums I want to see and if I had a friend with me.
Speaker 1:She would be saying let's go there and no, no no, I want to go there, and that's the reason I love traveling alone.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what challenge or experience in your life shaped you the most?
Speaker 1:When I was born, both me and my mother almost died in the childbirth and I've been born in the 70s, so this is extremely rare in Finland. It never happened, but sometimes it happens anyway. But when I was born, I couldn't breathe at all and the only thing the doctor knew that I was alive was my pulse. I was nothing more. I was like, yeah, alive, but not alive really, and the doctor told my mother that if I survive this, I will get brain damage, but it's also possible that I die. So I survived that and my mother told me about this when I was a very small child.
Speaker 1:I was in school when she told me the first time, and the second time she told me I was a teenager and I thought that this is a sign of there is a real reason why I didn't die. There must be a reason I'm still alive and I have to make something of my life because of this. Of course, as an adult I understood that this is, you know, new age thinking and it isn't real at all. There was no reason for this that I didn't die then there is no when I was very small. So it affected on my way to think about myself and my life and it was maybe a good thing I had this reason to live in my teenage years, you know, because teenagers are so destructive often.
Speaker 2:See, I know you said it's new age, thinking right.
Speaker 2:I'm all for it though, because I was saying no, I am, because you know you're saying that there's a reason why I'm here, there's a reason why I didn't die, even though the doctor said I could have died. There's a reason why I'm here and it kept you going. So it was, it was a motivator for you and it kind of said you know and I think it just sums up what we've, what we've been talking about over this past hour you know the stories that we tell ourselves and you told you had you had this story that your mother told you and you took on that you're here for a reason. There's a reason why, well, you didn't die as a baby, that you're, that you're here, so I'm all for it.
Speaker 1:Basically that's good that you think, so you can think that way. I still think that was. Everything is a happenstance in life, almost everything I believe that okay.
Speaker 2:So if you could go back to when you were 25 years old and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be? Start writing immediately all right, marta, before I ask you your last, final question about where the listeners of the conversation can find you as a film critic this is just me just being nosy as a film critic, one who was the most famous um person you met as a film critic, if you met anyone, and two who was your favorite person to interview in terms of actors actors.
Speaker 1:Okay, I have met justin bieber. I have met robert downey jr. Um favorite person to interview was elena salo she's. She's a finnish uh or film actress from the 50s.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say justin bieber, so random okay, it feels.
Speaker 1:It always feels so good to name drop a name drop is good, I'm all.
Speaker 2:I'm all for a name drop, okay. And finally, marta, oh no, before we even do that, because we were talking about we've been talking about follow the butterfly all throughout this interview from the very beginning. Can you tell the listeners of the conversation about your debut, follow the Butterfly and also what's coming up for you next?
Speaker 1:Okay, so Follow the Butterfly tells the story of Aida, 20-year-old serial killer, who realizes that she has murdered so many men that she will get caught. So in Finland we have this get out of jail free card known from Monopoly game, that if you are under mental stress when you do the murders, you don't go to jail, you go to mental institution. And so Aida decides to go to therapy to get this card, to get the pass for jail and go to mental health institution if she gets caught. That's the premise of the book.
Speaker 2:I love it get a jail card, serial killers monopoly. And what is next for you? What are you working on?
Speaker 1:I'm writing. I'm writing the third part of the follow the butterfly series already. Oh, you're already on book three.
Speaker 2:Sorry, you're already on book three. Yes, yes, I am. What's book two called, and when's book two out?
Speaker 1:I'm not sure, because my British publisher, push Pushkin Press, is going to publish the pocketbook version of Hollow the Butterfly at 16th of March. Oh, the paperback. Yeah, yeah, paperback comes then, and after that comes the second book, but I don't know yet when it will be published.
Speaker 2:Do you have a title, though, for the second book, meet Me in the Darkness, and what was not, what was? But how did it feel to write book two and book three in comparison to book one, because they always talk about second book syndrome? So what was the process like for you?
Speaker 1:talk about second book syndrome. So what was the process like for you? It was like there were many problems, but the problems were totally different compared to the first one, because when you write the first book, you are thinking about can I get the publishing deal? Does anyone want to read it? Can I do this? I haven't written a book before, can I do this? But when you write the second and third book, you already know that, yes, I can write a book. So it's much easier. And you, of course, the problems are different because you are thinking about does this foreign publisher want to buy this book? And when you write the first one, you are not thinking about foreign publishers or options or anything like that. You are just thinking can I do this?
Speaker 2:yeah, I always say there's a different pressure on you when you're writing the second, third, fourth, as long as you're in a contract. It's a different pressure. When you're writing that first book you are, you said, you're writing that book for yourself. So you may be thinking, oh, will I get an agent? Will I get a publisher? It would be nice for these things to happen, but you're writing that book for yourself. The next books you're writing for, you're writing for a publisher. You're writing under a contract. Someone is asking for that book and there's a deadline and you're not going to get paid until you deliver. So there's all these things. And then I remember and I was writing the second book because I was starting to see the reviews for the first book, they were coming through, and then I had. I kept saying to myself, well, can I, can I do this again? Can this second book be as good as the first book? So it's a completely different pressure that is imposed on you when you're writing, when you're writing under contract.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, and I hate to think that when I'm writing my 10th book, or even 12th, and I'm still I don't think it ever goes away.
Speaker 2:I don't think it ever goes away, but before I let you go, what was that feeling like when you held your book for the first time in your hands?
Speaker 1:oh, it is such a relief because you realize that it's finally here, it's's finished, it's over. It was pure relief for me.
Speaker 2:I think you've done brilliant. Honestly, I'm so impressed by you. I think you've done brilliantly. You really have Thank you. So, marta, where can listeners of the conversation find you online?
Speaker 1:I'm still on Twitter, and I'm so sorry about that and I'm on Instagram, facebook and LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:I will put all your social media handles in the show notes so you'll be able to follow Marta and buy your copy of Follow the Butterfly. So that just leaves me, marta Kokanen, to say thank you so much for being part of the conversation.
Speaker 1:Thank, you so much. We had such fun times and I hope the listeners have too.
Speaker 2:I think they have. I think they have. Thank you so much for listening to today's conversation with Nadine Matheson. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday for a brand new episode featuring more amazing guests. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a review. It really helps the podcast grow and if you'd like to support the show, you can buy me a cup of coffee or sign up on Patreon. The links are in the show notes and if you'd love to join the conversation as a guest, feel free to send an email to theconversation at nadiemaffersoncom. Thanks again for your support and I'll catch you next time.
