Tell us the story of your Accents Publishing book, Your Life as It Is.

This long poem was written in 2011, during what was perhaps my last visit to my country of birth, Russia, which I hate with all my heart. I experienced a swirl of thoughts and emotions connected to the changes in my life stemming from emigration. This affected the poem, which can be seen as a set of building blocks for a life. Repeated and altered, they befall the second-person protagonist in unexpected and unpredictable order. In the end, Accents Publishing graciously accepted the piece and brought it out in 2014.

What do you like most about it?

It feels awkward to compliment my own work, but my goal was to allow the text to open itself to any reader, providing many common “life points” of reference. In particular, the text is intended to be gender-neutral, with the alternating use of gender pronouns.

What did you have to overcome in order to finish and publish a book?

The pressures of a full-time job and the challenges of the business-driven model of the U.S. publishing world, which often marginalizes unique and demanding texts.

What do you hope people learn/receive/experience from reading your book?

I hope they might think about their own life and are moved to approach some challenges differently, or to treat others with more care.

What was your favorite interaction with a reader and/or a fan?

A message or a letter from someone I have not met physically, sharing that my work has helped or inspired them. This has happened only several times in my life, each such encounter a powerful endorsement of my choice to become a writer.

What are you working on now? Catch us up one significant event in your life since the publication of Your Life as It Is.

A few events rather than one. I published four poetry collections since 2014, but as always, most of my time is spent on prose. I’m writing my next novel, The Melting Frame, and my earlier novels, A Bag Full of Stones and A Slight Curve, came out in 2025. My memoir, A Broken Russia Inside Me, won a small press contest and will be out in 2026. It briefly mentions my work on “Your Life as It Is.”

Optional bonus question: Is there anything you want to get off your chest about writing or publishing? 

It’s a pursuit that makes sense only over the span of a life (as it is). Most practitioners receive no guarantees early on, if ever. The writer must manifest not only the text, but its future.