Olga Zilberbourg's Blog, page 2

Reading at Martuni’s and new publications

San Francisco friends: Come next Thursday to Martuni’s on Market Street. It’s a great reading series hosted by a wonderful poet James J. Siegel, and I’m so happy to be invited back. It’s always so much fun! Pro tip: the drinks are really strong.

New publications:

I was delighted to see my translation of a poem by Kyiv-based writer Olga Bragina in Cagibi. I have been experimenting with literary translation in a low-key way for many years, and I am very grateful to Olga for trusting me with her work. Two more poems from this cycle are slated to appear in World Literature Today and five more in Consequence, and I’m hoping to place more elsewhere.

A new fiction of mine, “Untrampled by Horses,” appears in Defenestration. It’s a humor piece. It’s supposed to be funny!
An older story, “Doctor Sveta,” that also appears in my collection LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES has been published online by Alaska Quarterly Review that had originally taken it for their print magazine. If you’re interested in Cold War history from the Soviet point of view, this story is for you!

Thank you for reading! Keep in touch!

Olga

The Question and The Racket

Dear friends,

The Question is my new short story, published by the wonderful Scoundrel Time magazine that has previously published my story Bananas for Sale, included in my collection LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES. Huge gratitude to Scoundrel Time editors Karen E. Bender and Paula Whyman.

The Racket is a reading series where I’ll be reading my work on July 25, at 7 pm. No official flyer for this event yet, but do show up at The Sycamore, 2140 Mission St in San Francisco, and help a group of us to celebrate Sasha Vasilyuk’s novel YOUR PRESENCE IS MANDATORY. The theme of the event is ALL OVER THE MAP, and what a map this is that includes Sasha, Rita Chang-Eppig, Jacqueline Doyle, Yalitza Ferreras, and Lee Kravetz!

*** The Sycamore is currently my favorite bar in the city, where I hang out Tuesday nights with the crew from the San Francisco Writers Workshop. IMHO, it’s the friendliest watering hole for writers in town. Happy for you to try to convince me otherwise, but first come to the reading!

It’s summertime, and I’m chauffeuring the kids to camps and such, so keeping this short. On way back across the bridge,

Olga

May Events and a New Interview

Dear friends, I recently talked to Jack Boulware about my journey as a writer, growing up in the USSR and Russia and moving to the US, cultural differences, Russia’s recent history and its descent toward war on Ukraine, literary community, and particularly Punctured Lines and my collaborations in bringing together writers from the former Soviet Union writing in English.

Jack co-founded Litquake with Jane Ganahl and co-ran it until last year, providing an amazing platform for some of the events that I have helped organize. At the end of last festival, Jack retired from Litquake and moved on to other things, among them is this Substack newsletter with a particular focus on West Coast’s news and culture. Subscribe! It’s always entertaining and there are so many amazing characters. And read our conversation here.

Speaking about writers community, please join me for two upcoming events.

On May 23, at 6 pm, I’ll be interviewing Sasha Vasilyuk at Telegraph Hill Books (1501 Grant Avenue, SF) about her new novel YOUR PRESENCE IS MANDATORY. Sasha and I share a bit of family history: both of our grandfathers fought in the Red Army against Germany in WWII, both were captured and became POWs, hiding their Jewish identities to survive in the Nazi camps. Later, upon returning to the USSR, they had to hide the fact of their captivity from the Soviet authorities to avoid being sent to the Gulag. They went about this differently, and therein lie the particularities of character and family circumstances that Sasha so wonderfully explores in her novel. I am so happy to see this book out in the world, and I can’t wait to talk to her about it!

Please register for this conversation on Eventbrite!

May 23, 6 pm
Telegraph Hill Books
1501 Grant Avenue, SF

It is also my pleasure to invite you to a reading that San Francisco Writers Workshop–the Tuesday night group that I’ve been attending since 2008 and co-moderating since 2015–is hosting for the benefit of our venue, Noisebridge Hackerspace. Noisebridge has been letting our use their space for free, but they certainly have a large monthly bill. This is our chance to help!

We’ve got an incredibly strong group of regulars whose names on book jackets will undoubtedly very soon grace your bookshelves. I will also read one of my new short-shorts. Come to listen and support us, and I can promise you that you will be entertained and inspired! There will also be a participatory literary game, food, (nonalcoholic) drinks, and a raffle! I think of this event as a giant party, but if I say so, don’t expect dancing. Details below.

May 31, 7 pm
Noisebridge
272 Capp Street, SF
Suggested donation $10

Sonoma Community Writers Festival

Bay Area Folk — on Thursday, April 4, I’ll be participating in a community writers festival at a university about an hour and a half north of San Francisco. An event organized by the wonderful fiction writer Miah Jeffra and his students, this will be an afternoon and evening program of readings and panels on writers’ craft and the publishing industry. Take a look at the full schedule.

At 5:20 pm, I will be moderating a panel “From a Reader to a Critic” about book reviewing.

At 7 pm, I will appear with my fellow writers published by WTAW Press and will read a story (or two) from LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES.

No need to register in advance. Show up if you’re able to! There will also be a book fair: a great opportunity talk to small presses, mags, schools, and buy your next favorite book.

Folks who are far away: When I travel to Sonoma, I always think of Jack London and The Valley of the Moon. There’s a park and a museum where London built his dream house before it burned down. The estate is quite a magical place, down to the warnings “beware of mountain lions.” Of course, so many newer books have been written about those parts, and it is only my Soviet childhood that makes me partial to London. How many of my US-born friends read his Hearts of the Three or even his masterpiece Martin Eden? Back when I was at Narrative Magazine, I had a lot of fun helping to put an excerpt from Martin Eden novel online. Go there for your notes on publishing industry!

Love, Olga

SF Public Library Reading and Recent Publications

It’s still January, and so not too late, in my book, to wish you all a happy New Year. For those of you in San Francisco Bay Area, my first event of the year is coming up this Saturday, February 3. Come to the Main branch of the SF public library at 2 pm.

I will be reading an excerpt from my novel-in-progress set in Leningrad in the year 1990. This event called “A Sense of Place” is organized by my friend Beverly Parayno, whose collection of stories WILDFLOWERS it was my pleasure to blurb. I’ll be reading alongside Beverly herself, Toni Mirosevich, and Norman Zelaya. I’m delighted to meet these acclaimed writers in person and to hear their stories of the Bay Area and beyond.

In the past few months, I have published two stories. One, a brand new fiction “Make Peace with the Cake” — about an ex-Soviet immigrant parent coping with the post-COVID, war-time social tensions and her own anxieties — appears in the Museum of Americana, a magazine that has generously published 1, 2, 3 of my earlier stories.

Another piece, “Sweet Dreams,” is an older story that remains important to me for personal, creative, and political reasons. It was first published circa 2010 in an issue of Mad Hatters’ Review and has now been brought back online by the Bulb Culture Collective, a magazine that gives home to stories that first appeared in now defunct online magazines. What a noble quest! I certainly have more work to send their way.

Last but not least, the service that I have been using to send out my newsletter (TinyLetter) is being discontinued, so I’m attempting to use my website provider (WordPress) for these emails. Those of you who are already subscribing to my website may have already seen some of this information. Please let me know if you encounter any other technical issues.

Sweet Dreams

“Having reached the age of 55, my mother has decided to try out retirement. She won’t stop working—there are no opportunities for advancement in that—but she’s decided to branch out and sign up for an advanced English class after work. Her older sister is taking the same class, and my mother can’t let her sister surpass her at anything. This week, their teacher assigned them a few song lyrics to translate. My mother, determined to be an A-student, messages me for help. . . .”

Continue reading this story on Bulb Culture Collective.

It’s an older piece that was first published in Mad Hatters’ Review 12: Back from the USSR, edited by Alex Cigale and Mariya Gusev. I remain deeply grateful to the editors for taking my piece and for assembling that folio that introduced me to many fellow ex-Soviet authors I have been following ever since.

Bulb Culture Collective is a wonderful venue that gives a second life to the previously published stories and poems from online magazines that do not longer exist. I love seeing this story back online.

Make Peace with the Cake in the Museum of Americana

I’m grateful to my friends at the Museum of Americana for publishing my story, “Make Peace with the Cake” in their Food Court section. Huge thanks to Lauren Alwan for editing!

Our Leo was six or seven weeks old when we received advice from fellow Russians, as we came to call ourselves after twenty years in the US. They had two kids in elementary school and when they shared their parenting philosophy, Sioma and I listened.

“We don’t do kids birthday parties,” they said. 

Birthday parties were a giant waste of time, they said. Treated as mandatory by middle-class Bay Area parents, no matter the racial or ethnic background, these utrenniki were all alike: a bouncy house at a playground, pizza, cake. One couldn’t drop the children off but had to hang out and talk to the adults. If you couldn’t sustain a conversation about baseball scores or local politics, forget it. “Remember how it was back home?” the dad asked.

TO CONTINUE READING: https://themuseumofamericana.net/2023/11/07/americana-stories-the-food-court-fiction-2/

**POSTPONED** A Sense of Place Panel at the San Francisco Public Library

Update: This event has been postponed. I’m standing by for the new date.

I’m delighted to join a panel of writers I admire in a reading that will take place on Saturday, November 4 at the San Francisco Public Library.

Details:
Saturday, November 4, 2 pm
African American Center, 3rd Floor
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco

A Sense of Place Panel at the San Francisco Public Library

I’m delighted to join a panel of writers I admire in a reading that will take place on Saturday, November 4 at the San Francisco Public Library.

Details:
Saturday, November 4, 2 pm
African American Center, 3rd Floor
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco

Lit Crawl: Building Community in the Face of War

Bay Area friends — come out to our Lit Crawl event on Saturday, October 21, 5 pm at 518 Valencia.

This event was a long time in the making. As Ukraine approaches its 600th day of defending its sovereignty against Russia’s assault, it remains paramount to continue to tell our stories and to refute the propaganda narratives that are festering in the social media spaces.

I’m really looking forward to hearing the poems, stories, personal essays and more from this group of Bay Area writers with deep personal connections to both Ukraine and Russia.

Lit Crawl is a part of San Francisco’s Litquake festival going on right now. Make sure to check out the full program and to participate in other events. It’s an amazing experience!