Welcome to the world of Esther Warren
Historical fiction and narrative nonfiction rooted in Sweden, family memory, emigration, folklore, and the quiet lives that history so often forgets.
The stories move between rural Dalsland, old cottages, country stores, forests, lakes, ships, Ellis Island, Chicago, Minnesota, and all the places where people have carried their homeland inside them.
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The very best part of being a writer and an artist is the connection with people. Getting to share my stories — whether they come in the form of words or images — and getting to hear other people’s stories and life histories in return.
My art has given me the gift of new friends, new knowledge, and a window into so many lives through the people who’ve reached out with stories of their own. So often I hear them say they wish they’d asked to hear more of what their own family members had to tell — and I believe deeply in the idea of telling the stories of our own lives to others.
My monthly letter is my way of doing just that. I spent 25 years as a psychiatric nurse. I’m the parent of neurodivergent kids. I live in the Swedish countryside, with forest and a lake on my own land. I spent a year living in a monastery in France. I started painting at 39, and I wrote my first book at 46. Today I have more than 20 books with readers all over the world, and over 100 paintings across 5 continents. This is parts of me, parts I use and draw inspiration from when I write and paint.
In my monthly letter I share pieces of my life — my own story, the ground and soil that everything I write and paint grows from. I hope you’ll join me. And I hope to hear something from you, too.
I began painting during a time when life was in need of distraction and focus. Brush and color demand my full attention, and when I paint I step into a world where things come into being — if I let myself be swallowed by the process.
As with the books, it is easiest to paint what I love, and I love the nature where I live. Swedish forests, lakes, trees and stone. Sometimes a cottage, sometimes a mythical creature. Sometimes the coast outside Gothenburg.
I fell for oil: it asks for time and patience to dry, but it also lets me rework and shape it for a long while. I especially love getting to build and play with the texture.
Courses
Before the stories are lost
A guided course to help you write your family’s emigration story.
Start your story
Coming soon
Invite me to speak
Meeting readers and audiences is the part of this work I love most. I speak to Swedish-American museums, historical societies, genealogy groups, libraries, and cultural associations — live over Zoom from my home in the woods of Dalsland, and in person when it’s possible.
I’m an author and painter, and before that I spent 25 years as a psychiatric nurse. My talks tend to live where history meets real human lives.
Talks ready to book:
The Story of Swedish Emigration
From Plague to Progress
What the Death Books Tell Us
Swedish emigration and the families left behind
The Dalsland landscape — how the ice age, the lakes and the forests shaped the people who lived here
Women’s lives in the old parishes
Folklore and superstition in rural Sweden
Becoming an independent author — writing and publishing on your own terms
The stories behind my paintings
Something else in mind? I’m always glad to shape a talk around your group.
My books inspire these songs — listen to the full playlist on YouTube. Here’s a taste:
Coming soon
There’s always a new story taking shape in the woods of Dalsland. Here’s what’s next:
Signe: Book 2
by Esther Warren
She survived the winter. Now comes the road.
It is 1821. Signe and her family leave everything familiar behind, traveling north toward Kristiania — a city that exists, until now, only as a name and a hope. The road tests not only their bodies but the quiet promises that hold a family together.
This is not a story of arrival. It is a story of becoming.
Book Two in the Signe series — a complete story that stands alone while continuing Signe’s journey.
It was like it was written about my family, my Swedish ancestors and family still in Sweden, my American Swedish family. It also answered questions of “why” and “when” for me and my family. This was a true blessing to read. (And I will read it again!)
This author knows her Swedish people very well. She expressed their feelings, traditions, needs with passion. I will read more of her work.
Readers on Amazon
The Tale of the Journey:
Swedish Migration to America
My best read in a long time. Characters live on the page and story is so real, both beautiful and sad.
This emotional and enticing book is a work of poetical art. Many descriptions that touch the soul or warm the heart.
The writing settled my soul and warmed my heart. This story is a blessing. Thank you Esther Warren for this gift.
Readers on Amazon
Elin: The complete journey
