My aim with my writing is to awaken the imagination in myself and those who read. As children, we ”live” in the imagination, it is an included part of our life and sensory experiences. As we leave childhood, our natural gift to imagine and experience the world in images, fades. Conceptual thinking takes over from the pictorial, and a certain magic that existed disappears. But I don’t believe it has to be that way, and neither do I think we benefit from the loss of the imagination from our lives. I believe the ability to think in pictures has a great potential as a human quality, if we developed it and refined it. Through the imagination we can find the path to perception and empathy, creativity, and innovation, but also to the deeper mysteries of life. Mystics have often formulated their knowledge in imagery, so that it speaks directly to the soul and is not blocked by the intellect. My ambition is to dive deeper into the essence of the imagination and discover the treasures and secrets that lie within.
Writing has been my companion me for a long time, but became something central when I became ill with ME / CFS. The change in lifestyle that resulted from the condition, led to the deepening of the imagination I am now working with. My nerves were very sensitive and strained, and I was very exhausted physically and intellectually and had difficulty taking in information and reading. But the imagery had a different effect. I experienced the disease as a dry condition and the imagination as a water that watered my mind.
I have studied creative writing in different ways since then. First through The Writing Connection, where the poets Horst and Jennifer Kornberger formed courses where myths and fairy tales are used as material, with the aim for each student to find his or her own imagination and imagery. Later I studied more classic forms of creative writing through Luleå University of Technology and Linnaeus University.
Freja Elnerud 