I've been writing stories for as long as I can remember.
When I was eleven, I wrote a story and sent it to a Norwegian
women's magazine. For reasons that probably made perfect sense to my eleven-year-old self, I pretended to be a thirty-year-old woman with marriage problems and two impossible children.
They published it.
And paid me 25 Norwegian kroner.
A small fortune in 1978.
I remember thinking: Hang on. Could I actually make a living doing this?
When I was thirteen my Norwegian teacher told me I wrote with “the soul of a poet,” and I thought I might have found my calling.
Life eventually took me into business, leadership and boardrooms – but the writer within never left me.
These days, I'm not so sure where one ends and the other begins.
Because writing has always been more than something I do.
It's one of the ways I make sense of life.
I'm fascinated by the stories we tell ourselves.
About who we are. What success looks like. What we're supposed to want
– and what might happen if we start questioning some of it.
Sometimes I write to understand something.
Sometimes because something needs to come out.
And sometimes a story seems to arrive before I even understand what it's trying to tell me.
In 2012, I left the corporate world after fifteen years in the technology industry.
I had loved much of that life. But something in me needed to breathe again. I wanted to feel free.
A few months later, I got on a plane to Kaua'i.
There was no particularly sensible reason for going. I simply had a strong feeling that I needed to be there.
A hunch. Or, as I might call it today, a rather significant breadcrumb.
The moment the plane landed, before I'd even set foot on the island, I suddenly saw a story playing out in my mind.
A successful corporate woman comes to Kaua'i and begins questioning the life she's worked so hard to build — and the beliefs that created it.
Her name was Maya.
And then I discovered something.
As a little girl in Norway, I'd been fascinated by the old Hollywood musical South Pacific and its mysterious island of Bali Ha'i.
I had no idea that much of the movie had been filmed on Kaua'i.
Or that Bali Ha'i actually existed.
Apparently, that particular breadcrumb had been waiting for me for about thirty years.
I returned to Kaua'i year after year, and Maya's story grew with me.
I thought I was writing her transformation.
Looking back, I think I was also writing mine.
Somewhere along the way, Kaua'i became a kind of cocoon for both of us.
And eventually, we both grew wings.
Fly, Butterfly
The story that found me on Kaua'i.
Meet Maya Williams.
Ambitious, hard-working and determined to make it to the top, Maya has built a successful corporate life in New York — even if getting there means navigating a few old-school male executives who aren't exactly cheering her on.
Then a business trip takes her to Kaua'i.
Suddenly, Maya finds herself in a world that seems to operate by entirely different rules. Life moves slower. People think differently. Success looks different. And somewhere between the ocean, unexpected friendships and a few encounters she definitely didn't see coming, Maya begins questioning some of the things she's always believed about work, love, happiness — and herself.
When she returns to New York, she has a bigger title, more influence... and a rather inconvenient new perspective on life.
Can Maya succeed in the corporate world without losing the person she's becoming?
Fly, Butterfly is a story about personal and professional transformation, inspired by many true events — including more of my own than I probably realised when I started writing it.
Read Fly, Butterfly
What readers say
-
![Adam Grant]()
"Annicken R. Day has a gift for transforming bureaucracies into businesses that buzz with creativity and joy. With her debut novel, she shows that she also has a knack for crafting stories about transforming ourselves."
-ADAM GRANT
#1 NYT bestselling author of THINK AGAIN, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife -
![Amy Brann]()
"Fly, Butterfly is a page turner that draws you in and makes you nod furiously, laugh deeply, and then sob with empathy. This is a powerful novel that has the energy to inspire change."
- AMY BRANN
Author of Engaged, Make Your Brain Work and Neuroscience for Coaches -
![Connie Steele]()
"Annicken R. Day has an incredible gift for connecting with the reader while making us think about how we might want to transform ourselves to find happiness, joy, and fulfillment."
- CONNIE WANG STEELE
Future of Work Expert, Author of Building The Business of You.
And then there are all the other things I write...
Not everything wants to become a book.
Sometimes it's a story. A poem. A reflection. Something I've experienced, noticed or can't stop thinking about.
I've always used words to make sense of life — the beautiful parts, the difficult parts, the funny parts, and the things I don't entirely understand.
This is where I collect some of them.