LATE BLOOMERS

A compulsively readable, wise and funny collection of flash fiction about the ways we overachieve so single-mindedly that we forget what true success looks like.

The characters in LATE BLOOMERS are motivated, driven, ambitious... but they're also trapped by their perfectionism - as so many of us are. They miss out on the romance of date night because they're too caught up in streamlining their lives for efficient productivity, setting calendar reminders for sex. They obsess over beauty regimes and waste precious vacation time on miserable "self-improvement" retreats. In one heart-wrenching yet hilarious story, they lay off their office dog for failing to improve employee morale. The world's first retirement home for overachievers offers residents posture corsets to prevent them from shrinking with age.

While each story can stand alone, they overlap subtly and together follow the arc of life - beginning before a child is even born, through coming of age, middle age, and eventually our ultimate reckoning with "Mount Ego."

Having grown up in the world's happiest, most stable country (according to the 2019 UN World Happiness Report), Finland, Eveliina offers a unique perspective on this hectic, over-scheduled, self-improving way of life - which she knows all too well herself - and reflects back to us our failures that result from overachieving.

Eveliina Nieminen studied creative writing at Columbia University and Gotham Writers Workshop, and her work has been published in The American Journal of Poetry and the British literary magazine Flash. She is a branding and communications strategist in her native Finland, where she consults for iconic brands like BMW and Pepsi, and she has delivered keynotes at Europe's leading start-up event, Slush.