Writing with my Sister By Camilla Grebe

How do you write a bestselling psychological crime series? Ask your sister! Camilla Grebe tells us how she and Åsa Träff started out writing Some Kind of Peace.

Maybe it was the time I spent as manager for a small audio-book publishing house in Stockholm; the many hours of reading manuscripts, meeting with authors and attending trade fairs. Maybe it was the fact that the house my sister and I grew up in was filled with books, and not just any books: thrillers and crime novels by famous Swedish writers such as Sjöwall-Wahlöö and Maria Lang. We read them all before we turned twelve. Summers were spent analysing crime plots and discussing whether characters were credible or not.

            But regardless of what actually initiated it, in the summer of 2004, I sent my younger sister Åsa an e-mail saying “I’ve written the first chapter of a crime novel – now you write the second one. Much to my surprise, she complied. Years later, she explained to me: “It wasn’t because I felt I had to obey you, you know, but I discovered I rather enjoyed reading what you had written. Strange, huh?”

            Within weeks it had become our pet project. We kept e-mailing each other chapter after chapter, and every time I received one of Åsa’s e-mails, I opened it with the same anticipation as I would a Christmas gift.

            Now, eight years and three books later, I sometimes miss that very first time. Writing was pure joy, an innocent game between the two of us. No deadlines, no pressure to deliver. Our heroine, the capable, yet so fragile psychiatrist Dr Siri Bergman, grew organically from our co-operation. When we first met her, she was a stranger, even to us. Today, she is like the third sister we never had. We often refer to her when discussing everyday issues, “Siri would have hated that guy. She never could stand that kind of self-conscious man”.

            Famous Swedish poet, Karin Boye, wrote: “Yes, there is meaning in our journey – but it’s the pathway, which is worth our while”. I begin to think that it’s exactly the same thing with writing. The books, fantastic as they may be, sometimes feel secondary to what writing them has done to us. For me and my sister Åsa, writing has brought us very close to each other. And, of course, now we can enjoy the company of our “third sister”, Siri, that we created out of thin air that warm summer eight years ago.

Some Kind of Peace, Camilla and Asa’s beautifully written debut novel featuring Siri Bergman – a psychotherapist who is terrified of the dark – is out now.