It began in my youth in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s Perestroika and Glasnost inspired my interest in journalism. The breakup of the USSR had interfered with that dream. The journalistic nudge came back when I left newly independent Belarus for Dubai in 1995 and it brought the fascination with the English language too. In those early years of my corporate career, my letters to the editor, commenting on the state of Russian affairs, were published in The Gulf News. But as my career took off, my writing aspirations gave way to my MBA studies (Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK)

It was almost accidentally. In 2011, living in Shanghai, no longer in the corporate world, I worked with communication consultant Rashmi Jolly Dalai on content creation for a project I was working on. Two of my articles were published in Shanghai Family magazine, but I got stuck creatively soon after. It was after a free-writing exercise Rashmi asked me that fateful question, “Have you ever thought of writing a book?” 

Um… Throughout my twenties, as I left the newly independent Belarus, I had an eerie sensation of living in a story with a clear premise and a twisted plot. So the book seed fell into fertile soil. Rashmi became my first writing mentor, now a very dear friend. 

The memoir is my response to the under-narrated first-person story of the break-up of the USSR, a story of the entire generation of youth that was thrust into the post-USSR wilderness. It is an intimate account of life under a chrome coating of Soviet-ness, an insight into the identity-less Belarus of today, and the muddled ethnic identities of many Russian speaking former Soviet citizens. Fish-out-of-water, from rags to riches, and coming of age, are the themes that thread through this story, but it is the historical context that makes it especially unique and relevant today. Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, the holy Slavic trinity, once the linchpin of the Soviet Union, are embroiled in a bloody conflict that stems from the dissolution of the USSR.

I don’t have favourite authors, because there is so much to learn from every author I come across. I draw a lot of inspiration from Svetlana Alexievich, a Nobel prize-winning Belorussian writer, for her unique ability to weave a story.

I love a good story! My early inspirations were memoirs such as Holly Cow by Sarah McDonald, Stephanie Griest’s Around the Bloc, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s ashes, Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, and Jesse Sholl’s Dirty Secret. 

Books by Jeanette Winterson Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? and Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch became my literary bibles.

When I think fiction, names like Ocean Vuong, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kate Atkins, Amy Tan, and Jonathan Franzen spring to mind.

As someone infatuated with all things stellar, my reading list always includes a book on astrophysics or science, so books by Brian Greene, Neil De Grasse Tyson, Janna Levin, and Bob Berman are my go-to.

A concept 

Raising the Curtain on a story: yours, mine, ours. 

Raising the Curtain on one’s vulnerabilities and insecurities. 

Raising the curtain on a storytelling craft. 

A direct reference 

To the terrain of my experience of living behind the            curtain.

A book title  

A coming of age memoir in the country coming of socialist age.   

It is also an incredible writer’s journey, riddled with many flails and some successes, an exciting adventure through many dead ends, U-turns and pit stops on the way to self-discovery.

For over a decade, I have been working with writing mentors and editors, attending literary festivals in Shanghai, London, Dubai, and New York, looking to fix my writing from the outside, only to realize that it is an insider’s job. Covid solidified my commitment to writing. 

I don’t know everything, but I would love to share with you what I know.  

Because there is nothing more I want to do in life than tell stories.

For people who want to find their story.

For those who have a burning desire to tell their story, but don’t know-how.

For fellow storytellers, who are looking for a community.

For non-native aspiring English writers.

It began in my youth in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s Perestroika and Glasnost inspired my interest in journalism. The breakup of the USSR had interfered with that dream. The journalistic nudge came back when I left newly independent Belarus for Dubai in 1995 and it brought the fascination with the English language too. In those early years of my corporate career, my letters to the editor, commenting on the state of Russian affairs, were published in The Gulf News. But as my career took off, my writing aspirations gave way to my MBA studies (Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK)

It was almost accidentally. In 2011, living in Shanghai, no longer in the corporate world, I worked with communication consultant Rashmi Jolly Dalai on content creation for a project I was working on. Two of my articles were published in Shanghai Family magazine, but I got stuck creatively soon after. It was after a free-writing exercise Rashmi asked me that fateful question, “Have you ever thought of writing a book?” 

Um… Throughout my twenties, as I left the newly independent Belarus, I had an eerie sensation of living in a story with a clear premise and a twisted plot. So the book seed fell into fertile soil. Rashmi became my first writing mentor, now a very dear friend. 

The memoir is my response to the under-narrated first-person story of the break-up of the USSR, a story of the entire generation of youth that was thrust into the post-USSR wilderness. It is an intimate account of life under a chrome coating of Soviet-ness, an insight into the identity-less Belarus of today, and the muddled ethnic identities of many Russian speaking former Soviet citizens. Fish-out-of-water, from rags to riches, and coming of age, are the themes that thread through this story, but it is the historical context that makes it especially unique and relevant today. Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, the holy Slavic trinity, once the linchpin of the Soviet Union, are embroiled in a bloody conflict that stems from the dissolution of the USSR.

I don’t have favourite authors, because there is so much to learn from every author I come across. I draw a lot of inspiration from Svetlana Alexievich, a Nobel prize-winning Belorussian writer, for her unique ability to weave a story.

I love a good story! My early inspirations were memoirs such as Holly Cow by Sarah McDonald, Stephanie Griest’s Around the Bloc, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s ashes, Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, and Jesse Sholl’s Dirty Secret. 

Books by Jeanette Winterson Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? and Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch became my literary bibles.

When I think fiction, names like Ocean Vuong, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kate Atkins, Amy Tan, and Jonathan Franzen spring to mind.

As someone infatuated with all things stellar, my reading list always includes a book on astrophysics or science, so books by Brian Greene, Neil De Grasse Tyson, Janna Levin, and Bob Berman are my go-to.

A concept 

Raising the Curtain on a story: yours, mine, ours. 

Raising the Curtain on one’s vulnerabilities and insecurities. 

Raising the curtain on a storytelling craft. 

A direct reference 

To the terrain of my experience of living behind the            curtain.

A book title  

A coming of age memoir in the country coming of socialist age.   

It is also an incredible writer’s journey, riddled with many flails and some successes, an exciting adventure through many dead ends, U-turns and pit stops on the way to self-discovery.

For over a decade, I have been working with writing mentors and editors, attending literary festivals in Shanghai, London, Dubai, and New York, looking to fix my writing from the outside, only to realize that it is an insider’s job. Covid solidified my commitment to writing. 

I don’t know everything, but I would love to share with you what I know.  

Because there is nothing more I want to do in life than tell stories.

For people who want to find their story.

For those who have a burning desire to tell their story, but don’t know-how.

For fellow storytellers, who are looking for a community.

For non-native aspiring English writers.