Marko Hautala ’s first novel Kirottu maa (‘Cursed Earth’) was published in 2002. He has published short stories and poetry in different Finnish magazines and anthologies. In addition he teaches prose writing and has written lyrics for two albums by the band Noitapastori.

My writing is a bit all over the place as I haven't really settled with any genre or style. I used to put that down to young age but now that I've turned 30 I guess I should start working on a new excuse. My latest venture was in drama, as I wrote a play called Raskain metalli (‘The Heaviest Metal’) which was produced by a student theatre in the spring 2004.

Because my novel Kirottu maa (Cursed Earth) happened to be a kind of a combination of a Chandlerian detective story and a horror story, my recent work has been in the field of dark fantasy and horror. It's sometimes convenient to let others define your writing and then follow that definition, to see where it goes. This has been the case for me anyway, because, as I said, my writing in the past has been a wee bit haphazard. You can of course break out of those definitions later on (I’d like to think anyway).

The Interland project for me is a great opportunity in many ways. Being the youngest and least experienced writer in the group, I’m in a good position to be able to learn from the others. I’ve never written on a given theme either, not on something as loose as ‘water’ anyway! But as the group started playing around with ideas connected to water, and brought in memories, myth and so forth, I felt it quite easy to start writing.