The Finnish Association of Non-fiction Writers
Hallituskatu 2 B, 3. krs
FI - 00170 HELSINKI, FINLAND
tel. + 358 9 4542 250
fax + 358 9 4542 2551
toimisto[at]suomentietokirjailijat.fi
www.suomentietokirjailijat.fi
The Finnish Association of Non-fiction Writers is Finland's biggest writer organisation.
It is a cultural and professional organisation dedicated to protecting the interests of non-fiction writers. It promotes Finnish non-fiction, protects the copyright and financial interests of its writers, provides support for non-fiction writers and furthers the professional competence and ethics of its members.
The Association was founded in 1983, as a joint organisation for writers of non-fiction and text books. It now has over 2,700 members – writers of non-fiction for the general public, text books, manuals, dictionaries, articles, etc.
Governing the Association is a Board of ten members chaired by Dr Markku Löytönen. The Executive Director is Dr Jukka-Pekka Pietiäinen.
What is a non-fiction work?
According to a classical definition of knowledge, a well-founded, true belief is knowledge. Knowledge satisfies the requirement of being true, and it can be substantiated. In the Finnish language, one of the original meanings of the word meant knowing the way. Knowledge gets you there.
Accordingly, a non-fiction work – a work of knowledge – is something that is based on publicly and generally accepted knowledge and has the objective of communicating this knowledge to the reader. A non-fiction work may be published in the form of a book but equally well in another form.
What matters is not the publishing format but the core role of a non-fiction work – that of striving to communicate true knowledge to the reader. As to the subject matter, a non-fiction work may deal with any subject within the full range of knowledge. Writers of scientific books, dictionaries or textbooks are all non-fiction writers.
Genres of non-fiction (pdf)
Looking for an expert?
Among the members of the Finnish Association of Non-fiction Writers are experts on subjects ranging from archaeology to zoology.
The register of experts (in Finnish) is useful for anyone seeking, say, a speaker or writer and can be searched by name of expert or specialist field. It also has a predictive word-search facility.
Asiantuntijahaku (in Finnish)
