Letter to my 17-Year-Old Self

You spend 2011 and 2012 being a sleep-deprived, miserable, anxious hermit. Here are some reckons on life eight years on.

Covid-19 coronavirus: On recovery and listening

I think it’s likely I got a mild Covid-19 case in late March. I was exhausted with some fever and digestive symptoms and I know where it probably originated from. I was lucky that I had a friend who could go to the pharmacy for me, and that even when several of my close friends […]

Scandinavian Shift

April 2020 was a strange moment to move north of the Arctic circle. Almost all of my international friends who could were finding their way home, wherever that meant for them. I was no exception—at least if I classify a home location as “wherever my parents are”, which I am privileged to be able to […]

Being a disabled journalist is lonely: Let’s change that together

Image caption: Isabelle Ulfsdotter and Áine Kelly-Costello presenting at Gothenburg University. Photo/Patrick Jowett Update: response from book launch organisers Hostwriter follows this post. One night in Hamburg As I clambered up the wobbly boat stairs, across a connecting bridge and down similar, steep steps, a blurry montage of words followed me: hierarchy, subaltern, inclusion, power, […]

Home again?

When does one feel at home living somewhere new? The question surely yields as many answers as there are people who’ve ever found themselves trying to capture the essence of home, once it outgrows the notion of being tied to a single house. I’ll explore some of the ways I’ve started to find a home […]

Here’s what I learned when the muckrakers united

I stood or sat, phone in hand note-taking or exchanging contact info, in a sea of reporters listening to each other. I perched on cramped benches, sometimes on the floor, a chair if I was more punctual and decisive than usual about session selection.   There we were, 1700 investigative journalists, academics, non-profit directors, students, […]

Looking for hope? Reflections from a climate campaigner and journalist

Tipping Points of Hypocrisy   As about four million strikers took to the streets on Friday, a part of me felt relief. Here comes, surely, some kind of human-powered tipping point for climate action. It was a similar part to the one that felt elated and hopeful when Auckland University divested from fossil fuels in […]

After the rain – my first month in Sweden

A few days before class on my way home, I step off the train to discover a deluge. I have over a kilometre to walk, I’m wearing shorts and a light windbreakder, and the water gods are having a ball. The cold, unrelenting pelts are all I can hear and feel and I try not […]

My Faithful Travel Companion

As a familiar Irish lilt comes to life in a pub in Sweden I have never visited, I want to cry. Instead I pick up my flute to join in.   This is the Irish trad (or traditional) session culture – all you need is a space (preferably a pub to quench the thirst), a […]

Leaving a trace through Gothenburg

It’s a balmy day by Gothenburg summer standards, 20°C and not too windy. Four of us, two Kiwis and two Finns, pause outside a café on a bustling Gothenburg street, long enough for me to register it’s the first café I’ve been to in Sweden. “I wonder if they have kanelbular here. The cinnamon buns?’’ […]