The Empty City is about awakening to inner truths and one’s own self. It is told in short episodes that describe a place, a dream, a question, a memory, a fantasy or an event.

Urban explorer and lucid dreamer Brandon Minamoto discovers that outside his thoughts and emotions exists a world that is silent and open, surrounding him and everyone else.

The silence starts picking him apart and makes him question his sense of self and his past. But behind the noise and the stories, there is something constant and unchanging.

INTERVIEWS/

Research Notes about The Empty City in Necessary Fiction – December 2011.

About colors – in Pure Slush – November 2011.

Interview excerpt in writer Marcus Speh’s communal blog Kaffe in Katmandu – October 2011.

About writing and publishing – in writer Chris Galvin Nguyen’s blog – October 2011.

About writing Gothicat Innsmouth Free Press – October 2011.

About Sovetskoye Shampanskoye – in Smokelong Quarterly – October 2011.

About writing and inspirationin writer Magen Toole’s blog – July 2011.

About nonduality and writing – in Non-Duality Magazine – March 2011.

 

REVIEWS/

“Berit Ellingsen’s voice and narration are tightly controlled and precise so that you never lose your way in her poetic, evocative language. I found myself wanting to quote different passages to friends.”

Review at Amazon.com by David Hodges.

“The author pays close attention to the physical properties of things and she evokes them carefully with precise and sensuous language. She writes, in fact, with her senses, which are finely tuned.”

Review at Amazon.com and Goodreads.com by Vanessa Wu, author of Love Has No Limits.

“The Empty City […] reads like a dream. An intense, literary dream that you just can’t shake, where faintly remembered images subtly haunt your waking reality.”

Review at Goodreads.com by Frankie Sachs.

“A thought-provoking, vivid read, with short chapters that move through to different level of consciousness – there are dream sequences, past memories, the present – together, the chapters form a larger mosaic. It’s one of the books that I didn’t want to end, but to move on, and on.”

Review by Dorothee Lang, author of Wor(l)ds Apart, with Smitha Murthy.

BERIT ELLINGSEN/

Berit Ellingsen is a Norwegian fiction writer whose stories have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including Unstuck, Bluestem, SmokeLong Quarterly, Metazen and decomP magazinE.

Her collection of short stories, Beneath the Liquid Skin, will be available from firthFORTH Books in November 2012.

Berit admits to pining for the fjords when abroad.

To contact, write to beritellingsen (at) gmail (dot) com or leave a comment in the blog:

BeritEllingsen.com

 

Publications/

For full list of publications and stories, click on this link.

Berit Ellingsen’s collection of short stories, Beneath the Liquid Skin, will be available from firthFORTH Books (an imprint of Queen’s Ferry Press) in November 2012.