Ksenia Rychtycka's Blog, page 2
March 6, 2016
Immigrant Fiction -- My Story
Now that Crossing The Border is out in the world, I’ve been asked some interesting questions about the meaning behind the title I selected, as well as other authors’ influences on my work, and even if my Ukrainian background will play a prominent role in my future writing. You can check out my interview with Patti Abbott here, but for now I’d like to reflect a little on how important it was for me to discover other contemporary writers who came from different cultures and backgrounds, and interwove their personal histories into their fiction.I grew up in Hamtramck, Michigan, a little city in the middle of Detroit, which was primarily populated with Polish, Ukrainian, Yugoslavian and Albanian immigrants at that time. I spoke Ukrainian at home, learned Polish choice words from my friends down the street, and played kickball in the alley with the Albanian kids from the next block over. My life was multicultural from early on, and yet when I first got to college, the stories we read and discussed didn’t reflect the diversity I had grown up with.When I moved to Chicago, my literary world opened up and all of a sudden writing about my Ukrainian background was what I wanted to focus on. One day Harry Mark Petrakis, a Greek-American writer who had grown up in Chicago, came to Columbia College to give a reading and talk about his work. He was very dynamic and blew me away with both his presentation and the excerpts he was sharing with us. I remember that he was loud and funny, expressive and inspirational all at once. His books are filled with Greek-American characters and his vibrant cultural background is interwoven seamlessly throughout. I walked out of the auditorium that evening very excited and happy. Somehow that evening reinforced what I wanted to do in my own writing.Afterward, as I started working on my stories, I tried finding other Ukrainian-American contemporary writers, but at that time in the early 90s, I didn’t know of any. I suppose I wanted camaraderie and to see if other writers from my background were tackling the same issues I was wrestling with. A couple of years later I discovered Askold Melnyczuk in the pages of a writer’s magazine, and in 1994, his wonderful debut novel What Is Told was published. Then in a small bookstore in Vancouver, I pulled out a collection of short stories by Ukrainian-Canadian author Janice Kulyk Keefer. I still remember that moment in the bookstore when I stood in the corner and leafed through the pages, eyes soaking up the words. Now, some 20 years later, there are many American and Canadian writers of varying immigrant backgrounds. It’s wonderful to be able to travel the world, as well as specific regions of our own country in this way, and discover amazing new writers.That thrill of discovery–new writers, new worlds or even familiar worlds revisited—has all become easier with a simple click on a search engine. Personally I have fond memories of scouring bookstores for interesting new titles but there’s no denying how easy and effective the Internet is when you’re in search of something. And now there’s listmania and listopia and I am having great fun making my own themed lists of books. With that, I’ll close with a link to Eastern European Immigrant Fiction that I recently compiled for anybody interested in checking out great fiction with this focus. I’ll feature other lists from time to time since I’d like to spotlight other writers in this blog as well.Happy reading!
Ksenia
March 5, 2016
Welcome
October 25, 2014
Interview with Poet Nina Orlovskaya
My last post featured the awesome poetry of Nina Orlovskaya that was recently published in Ukrainian Metro News. Please check out her poems if you haven’t had the opportunity! Her book is available on Amazon. I was excited to interview Nina about her work.
Can you talk about the impact of poetry on your life and when you first started writing.
I started writing poetry early in life, sometime during middle school. Being an introvert, I spent most of my time alone, indulging in thinking, and somehow I discovered music when I connected certain words that were connected in certain ways. I discovered metaphor before I learned that I wasn’t original — it was discovered centuries earlier. I didn’t call it metaphor, of course, I called it a cryptic way of saying anything you wanted to and no one or almost no one would understand you. When you’re 10 years old, to use metaphors while talking to your peers is slightly weird but cool. So I’ll say that poetry was a bridge for one introverted kid to travel into the extroverted world. Also, it helped me learn how to organize my thinking process and develop a very strong emotional memory. It’s sad to know that societies overlook the importance of teaching, or I should say, discovering the language of poetry in our children. Poetry is a language within a language -an essence of language, a shortcut into a human subconsciousness.
You are fluent in several languages. When you sit down to write, how do you select the language of the poem or is this a fluid process?
I mostly write in English, sometimes in Ukrainian, and less often in Russian. Although I read poetry almost every day in all those languages. A poem starts in my mind as a vivid flash, a sudden splash of a past memory, triggered by a scene, a word, smell, taste ….just about anything. My poetry is a reflection of my feelings on some event in the past, kind of a third-level scenario. I don’t choose a language to write one poem or another; the language chooses me. I think in English but in that creative process that occurs right before conscious thought, I ‘feel’ in all three languages.
What is your writing and editing process like?
I write fast and short: a flash, a stream of consciousness. And later I reflect on what experience, what memory, is in that “gibberish” — kind of like decoding my own thoughts. Sometimes I have a complete four- or six-liner in my head when I wake up and that’s a poem that doesn’t need any editing. Almost all my very short poems are of this nature. A usual process of editing starts a few days after the poem is written. I like to revisit the poem every month or every few months, but I never let myself make any changes to the poem after one year.
What poets do you read and who is especially helpful or inspirational?
Just to name a few: Rainer Maria Rilke, Anna Akhmatova, Charles Bukowski, Theodore Roethke, Thomas Transtromer, Pablo Neruda, Robert Pinky, Taras Shevchenko, and others. Often I read my less famous but still inspirational friends/poets. When I have writer’s block or need to find inner peace, I read Thomas Transtromer. For instance, I never tire of reading his poem “After a Death.”
What inspires you?
What inspires me? I have to say nothing and everything. I am very hungry for life. There are times when I live with no time to write and I don’t even try to break my pace of living. And then there are times when everything slows down – it’s a time of reflection and involution, a time of inspiration and writing. That’s when I am most true to myself.
September 22, 2014
Poetry of Nina Orlovskaya
Nina Orlovskaya
January 19, 2014
Revolution in Ukraine
Like many around the world, for the last couple of months, I have been riveted by the protests in Ukraine. Day after day and night after night, hundreds and thousands of men, women and yes — even children –have braved the cold, snow and discomfort to stand on Independence Square and proclaim their anger and dissent at President Viktor Yanukovych and his regime. It all started when at the last minute, he veered away from signing an association agreement with the European Union and has most recently ended with him basically selling Ukraine out to Russia and ramming dictator anti-protest laws through the Parliament in an illegal manner.
Today there are violent clashes between the protesters and police. It is hard to say how it will all end but Ukrainians’ patience has run out. They want better lives and they want it now. They are sick of the blatant corruption and oppression exercised by those in power. Some of you may wonder why I am writing about a political situation on my literary blog but if you’ve read some of my stories you know that politics intertwine with the personal in my fiction:
“It’s a concert, a music concert, a rock concert, a dizzying blur, fur coats and hats, shoulder to shoulder, orange and orange, splatters of blue, a pilgrimage of sorts, a rally, a protest, flowers, flowers and the militsia at the sidelines, standing, watching. There must be hundreds, thousands jammed in the square, lining the streets. I feel faint. I feel cold. I feel giddy. I shout “yes.” I shout “yes” to change, “tak … tak … tak,” until my nose starts streaming and I taste the tears running down my cheeks. If only Ivan could be standing next to me. There’s too many, too many of us, the militisia won’t fire, won’t fire on their own. I stand for moments. I stand for eternity.” (excerpt from “Orange in Bloom”)
During the Orange Revolution, the militsia did not fire or use force against their own people. It’s a different story with EuroMaidan. There have been many heroes, spotlighted and not, during the two-month protests in Ukraine. Undoubtedly, there will be many more over the coming minutes, hours and days as this battle for Ukraine’s democracy and future plays out:
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/heroes-of-euromaidan-334031.html
I am awed by the sheer spirit, determination and willpower of the Ukrainian people. Last year, after Crossing The Border was released, I was asked if I would move on to other subject matter in my writing. I responded that I had no plans to write about contemporary events in Ukraine. Today I am not so sure.
Please support the protesters in Ukraine in any way you can….
July 21, 2013
Inspiration and Personal Feedback
It’s been much too long since I posted in this space but the spring and early summer swept by as I ventured out to local book clubs and events where Crossing The Border was the topic of discussion. Much like my experience of living in Ukraine, listening as avid readers discussed my fictional characters was wonderful and a bit surreal at the same time. When I’m writing I’m so focused on the world I’m creating that for a while everything else fades into the background. Once the writing is done and the work has been revised a multitude of ways, it’s time to share it with the rest of the world. Getting stories and poems published in literary journals is one of the greatest thrills for any writer but you usually don’t get personal feedback from your readers.
So it was really eye-opening to take in others’ perspectives about Vera, Valeriy, Luba, Lina, Petro and the other characters inhabiting Crossing The Border. At times, there was lively engagement about why certain characters acted in the way they did or why the stories ended on a particular moment. One reader was worried about the elderly woman who braved the streets during the Orange Revolution to buy a cage for the lost parakeet that flew onto her balcony. Others described their favorite moments or the stories they connected with most. Some wondered if the stories were based on true experiences.
As I explained, the inspiration for my stories came from various sources. Some were inspired by images that I couldn’t shake such as The Bell Tower where I kept visualizing an elderly man climbing up an old set of stairs. I had no idea at the time where that image came from or even what country the story would be set in. It was a fun process figuring it out. Orange in Bloom was inspired both by a wayward parakeet that I rescued while living in Ukraine and by a news article I read about elderly women who cooked food for the thousands of protesters camped out in downtown Kyiv during the Orange Revolution. There’s always a part of me embedded in each of the stories but fiction takes over as my characters come to life. That’s the exciting part of writing – not knowing what comes next.
These real-life stories behind the writing of the book were recorded in a brief clip/montage that Megan Ammer filmed and edited during my book presentation at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSJNqUK-KoY
Many thanks to the UIMA for this wonderful opportunity and to the four book clubs in Detroit and Chicago who hosted me and/or selected Crossing The Border for their book pick of the month. I am so very humbled and happy by all the support and encouragement I have received from my readers and I am looking forward to meeting more of you at future events.
February 28, 2013
Spotlight on Natalia Erehnah, Author of Swan Mothers
In an earlier blog, I talked about featuring other writers in this space from time to time. Today I’m spotlighting Natalia Erehnah, who recently published her book Swan Mothers: Discovering Our True Selves by Parenting Uniquely Magnificent Children. Her book is fabulous on many levels. Swan Mothers is filled with wonderful insight, compassion and understanding as the author takes us on a journey through parenting special needs children. What enhanced the book even more is that the story is not only told through the author’s perspective but features other mothers, who in their own words, tell their stories so the reader is treated to various perspectives.
I’m the mother of a beautiful daughter who has special needs so this really hits close to home. I have to say that I was inspired and invigorated by the message of hope, acceptance and support throughout. Natalia Erehnah also shows various tips and techniques to handle stressful moments and highlights alternative methods of treatment. There are times when parents simply become overwhelmed by challenges that seem insurmountable. And yet in reading Swan Mothers, I felt comforted and strengthened. The book provides a pathway out of the darkness. I asked Natalia some questions about her book and writing process.
Can you talk a little about how Swan Mothers came to life and also how easy or difficult it was to reveal personal family details, i.e., did your role as a mother ever interfere with your role as a writer?
In the fall of 2009, I moved to Wisconsin with my family. Having recently earned diplomas in Homeotherapeutics and Bioenergetics from the Institute of Natural Health Sciences, I hung a virtual shingle and began learning how to run a business by listening to free teleseminars. During one such teleseminar, the speaker proposed writing a book, and I immediately knew I would do so. Synchronistically, a Facebook friend posted that her writing coach was offering a writeshop for writers who were “at any point in the book writing process.”
At the writeshop, I was the only person who did not have a clear idea of what she would be writing. I knew that it would be related to my parenting experiences, autism, and the natural health sciences, but had not written a single word. I began writing in that writeshop, and went back for more, eventually joining a writers’ group led by Julie Tallard Johnson. Throughout the year-long meetings, Swan Mothers was written, critiqued and edited.
I made motherhood and writing work together by writing while my children were away from home, either at camp in the summer or at school. Now that I am homeschooling again, I find it much more challenging to create space for writing.
Regarding revealing details. I am a private person, so I am surprised to report that it was easy to share my story. I believe that ease came because the events relayed had been resolved before I started writing. The only aspect of concern was that my story was about the journey of parenting, and thus, revealed information about my family. I used pseudonyms for my children’s names and a pen name to afford my family some privacy.
The story of The Ugly Duckling is told throughout the book in snippets at the start of each chapter and obviously ties in with your book title. You also use the tale of the classic hero’s journey and compare it with the Swan Mother’s hero journey. It is a nice juxtaposition that connects with the overall personal stories of raising a child with special needs. What led you to this structure?
During the second writeshop I attended, my writing coach related the process of writing a book to embarking on a Hero’s Journey. The term Hero’s Journey was new to me. As Julie explained the phases of the journey, I realized that this archetypal pattern described my journey through parenting perfectly. The structure for Swan Mothers came together within minutes. While writing, I was looking for a story to use as a model for explaining the Hero’s Journey to readers. As I read The Ugly Duckling in Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run with the Wolves, I was highlighting, underlining, circling, and writing notes in the margins. I had found my story. The title emerged later, during another workshop.
(My writing coach, Julie Tallard Johnson, has published nine books, including Wheel of Initiation: Practices for Releasing Your Inner Light and The Thundering Years: Rituals and Sacred Wisdom for Teens. In November 2013, Zero Point Agreement: How to Be Who You Already Are will be released. She publishes a free weekly e-zine for writers which I highly recommend. You can subscribe at her website: http://julietallardjohnson.com/).
What discoveries did you make, either as a writer or as a mother, during the writing of Swan Mothers?
I was surprised how easy it was to write a lot in a short period of time (I wrote all of the “My Story” sections in two weeks while my children were at camp), and how long it could take to write even a few book-worthy words. I discovered that it was almost impossible for me to write at the times I set aside for writing, and that if I did not write at those times, I did not make progress with the book. Writing could flow easily or seem stalled for days or weeks.
I discovered that meeting with a group and having a good writing coach was vital to my process. Committing to write a certain amount of words per month, knowing my partner would be reading, helped me stay on track.
Due to the support of my group and coach, and to the fact that the book wanted to be written, writing was mostly easy. The road to publishing was more challenging.
I love your opening sequence and will quote a few lines when closing. You have a very engaging style of writing. What writers have inspired you?
I fell in love with books as a child, and the writers who inspire me include my childhood favorites: Madeleine L’Engle, Katherine Patterson, E. L. Konnigsburg, and C. S. Lewis.
I read for pleasure, and will read almost anything with a good story line. My current favorite authors include: Elizabeth Cunningham, Kathleen McGowan, Paulo Coelho, Marc Allen, Judith Prager Simon.
What other books would you recommend for anyone who has a connection with a special needs child and is searching for support and more information?
Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
Empowered Autism Parenting by William Stillman
Drug-Free Approach to Asperger Syndrome and Autism: Homeopathic Care for Exceptional Kids by Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman, Robert Ullman, Ian Luepker and Bernard Rimland
I list many of my favorite resources in the appendix of Swan Mothers. I also suggest seeking out bloggers and authors with the same or similar diagnoses as that of your child for an invaluable perspective on what it is like to live with a diagnosed condition.
You have a website at www.swanmothers.com and a Facebook page titled Blessed by (Autism) Uniquely Magnificent Children, as well as a Facebook Swan Mothers Group (request to join). What’s next in store in terms of your writing and your efforts in helping parents of special needs kids?
I am developing workshops and retreats based on Swan Mothers. I dream of a camp-type setting for retreats, where mothers can explore their parenting journey.
I am also working on two fiction books which weave together the stories of a modern-day woman, Anastasia Sophia, who is discovering herself through journaling (in the first book) and blogging (in the second book), and Talitha, who lived so long ago that archeologists have not yet discovered evidence of her people.
Thank you for inviting me to blog with you!
You’re very welcome Natalia! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insight. I’ll close with a few opening lines from Swan Mothers:
For years I was visited by this recurring dream. I am driving south on a bridge in the Florida Keys. My children are in the minivan with me. The sky’s blueness is intensified by the whiteness of scattered, puffy clouds. Brilliant sparkles dance on the surface of the turquoise and seafoam waters. I am content, immersed in the peace, might, and splendor of the ocean around me.
Suddenly, my car is driving on air, as if on an invisible road running parallel to the bridge. I look around, terrified, and the pounding of my heart jolts me awake.
Why is my heart pounding? Why did I panic? Nothing was amiss. The car was not plummeting toward the water. The sea and sky were as blue and beautiful as the moment before. My surroundings seemed the same. Yet the bridge had disappeared from under me.
February 16, 2013
Crossing The Border made the Reviewer’s Choice list!
It’s been a whole new experience trying to promote my collection of short stories Crossing The Border to the world. Writing the book took years, then finding a publisher took more years, and now figuring out the intricacies of marketing a book by a small press has been an interesting internship of sorts. Yesterday I found out that my book made the Reviewer’s Choice list in the Midwest Book Review. The recommendation isn’t long or terribly detailed but I have to say it made my day as I’ve been sending out queries for reviews to many sites and book review bloggers over the past months. Sometimes I hear back but many times I don’t. Even when there’s a positive response there’s no guarantee that the book will be reviewed. So what do you do — keep sending and promoting as much as possible I guess. Sometimes it will pay off.
February 14, 2013
Happy Valentine’s Day!
What are your favorite movies, poems, songs or stories about love?
I recently read this poem by Mariya Tytarenko in the Fall 2010 issue of International Poetry Review and wanted to share it today.
I’ve included the original Ukrainian version below. The hopak is Ukraine’s national dance. In the past it was a show-off dance performed by males and focused on jumps, leaps and tricks. Today the dance is performed by both men and women and is usually the grand finale to a show, featuring leaps, spins, combinations and turns.
Mariya Tytarenko (translated by Olga Tytarenko)
A SEVEN HOUR TIME DIFFERENCE
your perfectly rhymed night
is escaping from my eyelid
drunken trees bloom
grotesquely dancing a hopak
I’m undressing for sleep
and you’re getting dressed for the morning
we moved towards the same lighthouse beacon
missing each other once again
and my unrhymed day
is rocking your soul to sleep and
the cobblestone pavement is knee deep in snow
slowly leaking up salt
and you nestle close to me
I cloak myself in the silence
and so we rendezvous
on different planets of the same earth
Марія Титаренко
РІЗНИЦЯ В СІМ ГОДИН
твоя відримована ніч
мені утіка під повіки
і п’яні дерева в цвіту
танцюють гротескно гопак
і я роздягаюсь у сон
і ти убираєшся в ранок
і знов розминулися ми
йдучи на той самий маяк
а мій неримований день
тобі приколисує душу
і брук по коліна в снігах
поволі вилизує сіль
і ти пригортаєш мене
і я угортаюсь у тишу
і так зустрічаємось ми
на різних планетах землі
January 6, 2013
Immigrant fiction — my story
Now that Crossing The Border is out in the world, I’ve been asked some interesting questions about the meaning behind the title I selected, as well as other authors’ influences on my work, and even if my Ukrainian background will play a prominent role in my future writing. You can check out my interview with Patti Abbott here, but for now I’d like to reflect a little on how important it was for me to discover other contemporary writers who came from different cultures and backgrounds, and interwove their personal histories into their fiction.
I grew up in Hamtramck, Michigan, a little city in the middle of Detroit, which was primarily populated with Polish, Ukrainian, Yugoslavian and Albanian immigrants at that time. I spoke Ukrainian at home, learned Polish choice words from my friends down the street, and played kickball in the alley with the Albanian kids from the next block over. My life was multicultural from early on, and yet when I first got to college, the stories we read and discussed didn’t reflect the diversity I had grown up with.
When I moved to Chicago, my literary world opened up and all of a sudden writing about my Ukrainian background was what I wanted to focus on. One day Harry Mark Petrakis, a Greek-American writer who had grown up in Chicago, came to Columbia College to give a reading and talk about his work. He was very dynamic and blew me away with both his presentation and the excerpts he was sharing with us. I remember that he was loud and funny, expressive and inspirational all at once. His books are filled with Greek-American characters and his vibrant cultural background is interwoven seamlessly throughout. I walked out of the auditorium that evening very excited and happy. Somehow that evening reinforced what I wanted to do in my own writing.
Afterward, as I started working on my stories, I tried finding other Ukrainian-American contemporary writers, but at that time in the early 90s, I didn’t know of any. I suppose I wanted camaraderie and to see if other writers from my background were tackling the same issues I was wrestling with. A couple of years later I discovered Askold Melnyczuk in the pages of a writer’s magazine, and in 1994, his wonderful debut novel What Is Told was published. Then in a small bookstore in Vancouver, I pulled out a collection of short stories by Ukrainian-Canadian author Janice Kulyk Keefer. I still remember that moment in the bookstore when I stood in the corner and leafed through the pages, eyes soaking up the words. Now, some 20 years later, there are many American and Canadian writers of varying immigrant backgrounds. It’s wonderful to be able to travel the world, as well as specific regions of our own country in this way, and discover amazing new writers.
That thrill of discovery–new writers, new worlds or even familiar worlds revisited—has all become easier with a simple click on a search engine. Personally I have fond memories of scouring bookstores for interesting new titles but there’s no denying how easy and effective the Internet is when you’re in search of something. And now there’s listmania and listopia and I am having great fun making my own themed lists of books. With that, I’ll close with a link to Eastern European Immigrant Fiction that I recently compiled for anybody interested in checking out great fiction with this focus. I’ll feature other lists from time to time since I’d like to spotlight other writers in this blog as well.
Happy reading!
Ksenia
