The Last Supper Party and Weird Science

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn book, Event, ReadingsLeave a comment

Dear friends,

The rains started in San Francisco yesterday, signalling a rapid turn towards winter. After the rains begin, California’s sun-burnt hills turn green and in my back yard the bougainvillea branches take off with extra color in all directions.

Our literary world is blooming too. Tonight, I’m going to a conversation between Sasha Vasilyuk and an Estonian writer Carolina Pihelgas. Tomorrow, I look forward to seeing some of you at Spill the Tea and Chopped Liver Lit Crawl events, subject of my previous email. Meantime, more events are imminent.

Have I mentioned that I’ve been working on a novel? It’s a queer love story between two immigrant characters that begins in an ESL class in London in 1996 and takes thirty years to develop. I’ll be reading an excerpt from this work on Saturday, November 7 at the Sycamore, as a part of The Last Supper Party reading series curated by Kimi Sugioka and the San Francisco International Arts Festival.

Blue poster with three author faces below and three men in tuxes above

I’ll be reading alongside with Colleen Shoshana McKee, a poet whose latest collection Feeding Ghosts is a tender and personal reflection on a relationship with a fellow Bay Area poet. Colleen is a friend whose work and its new directions has always surprised me, and I can’t wait to see what she brings to the reading in November.

This reading is an *Open Mic*, so bring your own work to read, and support The Sycamore, which is the best literary bar in the Mission. Songwriter Timothy Goodspeed will play and sing! Please RSVP here.

The following week, on Thursday, November 12, join me in celebrating the publication of three delightful new books at Green Apple in the Park. Scott Lambridis and I have been book club buddies for over fifteen years now, and though our readerly tastes are quite different, it’s a huge pleasure to see how some of the older books on our reading list have impacted the world of his debut novel, St. Ulphia’s Dead. Set in a remote village, his book deals with the locals’ beliefs that they are haunted by a cannibalistic spirit, the Wendigo, and medical researchers who arrive to investigate the issue. In our world both grounded in the scientific method and at the same time ruled by irrational behavior, fiction can show how these seemingly opposing impulses feed each other.

Blue poster announcing the event with three books and a moderator.

Yance Wyatt book The Water Smith has been billed as a Southern Gothic, and Martha Conway’s We Meet Apart is a WWII-era story about two sisters who become separated and stranded in parallel universes. I’m still reading these two, but I think we’ll have plenty of weird science to talk about.

Green Apple in the Park, November 12, 7 pm. Don’t forget to register and please buy the books!

And if you happen to be in Southern California this weekend, don’t miss Santa Monica Review’s issue release party this Sunday with Dylan Landis, Monona Wali, and many amazing others! Thanks to the editor Andrew Tonkovich who appreciates my sense of humor, I have a story in this issue. More on this once in a following newsletter (once I receive the copy of the magazine.)

Until soon! With gratitude,

Olga

Lit Crawl and Ingeborg Bachmann

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, Prose review, Publication, review, Translation3 Comments

Those of you who have been reading my newsletter for a while know that October is Litquake season in San Francisco — Litquake being our annual festival that celebrates writing and literature. Events are happening all across town this week and the next, culminating with a literary pub crawl through the Mission neighborhood on October 24th: Lit Crawl. Please check out the full schedule online, and join me in attending two events with which I’m entangled in various capacities.

First, on October 24, at 5 pm, I will be at the Red Poppy Art House, to listen to the stories from TEA (Transeurasian) Writers Collective. Emceed by the writer comedian in our midst, Yuliya Patsay, the writers will read excerpts from their published and new work, and muse on the ideas of Untranslatable and Unsayable. How do cultural taboos and superstitions contribute to opacity in translation and muddle understanding between cultures? Read our full event description on Lit Crawl’s website, and come hang out and listen to these stories — and as always, let me know if you’re interested in participating in this group.

A poster with 8 portraits of female writers

Then, at 6:30 pm, move with me from tea to beer at The Sycamore, for Chopped Liver: Stories from Secular Jewish Life. This event is extra special to me because my dad will be reading from his book Kогда рок был зелёным. He wrote the book in Russian, and I translated the excerpt he’ll be reading at this event. It’s set in 1968 and tells the story of a Soviet student rock band formed around a summer construction brigade. So, the students are building a cow shed by day and play The Beatles and The Animals songs by night. Speaking of the untranslatable. But fun!

In other news this month, my review of Ingeborg Bachmann’s The Collected Prose, translated by Tess Lewis and Philip Boehm, was published in On the Seawall. Bachmann is a post WWII Austrian writer, a poet and a radio personality, who achieved great fame in the German speaking world for calling out lingering Nazi practices in the culture and for connecting Nazism to men’s behavior toward women. She has long been celebrated in the feminist movement, and it’s very rewarding to see this translation bringing her work to wider English-speaking audiences.

Book cover tinted blue with a woman's face on the cover, against brick background with bougainvillea flowers.

Bachmann’s prose, especially in the early period, tends to the philosophical, and among other things, she does an incredible job of portraying the effects of mental illness on her characters’ lives. I would not recommend reading this book from the beginning — in my review I suggest a particular reading order. Please read the review, buy the book, and enjoy. For me, this has been a very rewarding reading project.

Globus Books

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, Newsletter, ReadingsLeave a comment

Buoyed by glorious weather that San Francisco and Bay Area usually enjoy in September and October, fall is the time for rich cultural life around here. Weekend days become too short to contain our collective enthusiasm for the arts. One such day this year will be September 27th, when all the muses joyfully compete for our engagement. I sorted it out and feel free to join me on the day’s adventure.

We start at 3 pm at the Herbst Theatre, at the Neon to New Orleans show by the San Francisco Pride Band. Having written about thermal cameras and AI that help ships avoid hurting the whales that wonder into San Francisco Bay, my friend, writer Katie Bourzac joined the band with their clarinet. I have peeked at the music they are playing, and I’m wondering how the ushers at the Herbst Theatre are planning to keep audience in our seats when we will all want to dance. Brute force, no doubt! Book your tickets now.

My plan is to use all the jazzy energy to dash off to the Richmond, where Globus Books is having a birthday party with more music and readings. Globus Books — an anchor of the post-Soviet and Transeurasian community — recently attained legacy business status in San Francisco. They began operations in 1971 with a wave of immigrants and exiles arriving to the US from the USSR, and have been hosting events and supporting diaspora authors ever since.

This event is likely to be at least partially in Russian, and I’m planning to read a bit of my work during the open mic portion.

And speaking of the post-Soviet and Transeurasian community, don’t miss stories that Yelena Furman and I published recently in our blog Punctured Lines:

Fence

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Publication, TranslationLeave a comment

I’m writing to share the latest of my translations to find home in a literary magazine. I’m continuing to translate the work of a Kyiv-based poet Olga Bragina, and this piece appeared in the latest issue of Fence Magazine (#43, Spring-Summer Issue).

A magazine cover on the background of green grass
Open spread of a magazine on the background of green grass

I’m sharing the piece here, but please do click through to the magazine and buy an issue or subscribe for a year. Fence takes cool experimental stuff and they take really good care of writers and writing, and supporting a magazine like this contributes immediately to the vibrancy of our literary world.

I want to go to an art show but I think what if they start bombing

the day after tomorrow is the first anniversary of the invasion      what if they start bombing

because who knows how many clones of that psychopathic KGB man are bombing us into the ground

because he doesn’t like our country and particularly my city

so what        I too often dislike this city        when we have traffic jams      black ice      intercity trains departing at six a.m.        I dislike it all      life might be more comfortable in any other city of Europe

and no I don’t think the way some do that the Motherland is sick but I love it anyway      no I don’t think the Motherland is sick      these thoughts belong to a different paradigm

my paradigm are the words of the Kyiv-born Golda Meir      “We want to live. Our neighbors want us dead. This doesn’t leave a lot of room for compromise.”

I’m so glad to know that art shows are opening in our city      I know they are opening

Writers and Hackers

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, ReadingsLeave a comment

This Friday, San Francisco Writers Workshop — the group I’ve been co-moderating for over 10 years — is celebrating its 80th anniversary. According to lore, it was started by two female poets in the aftermath of WWII in 1946, and has been meeting every Tuesday night in San Francisco ever since. It’s a free, drop in workshop for writers of all kinds, and to join, just show up.

For the past four years, we’ve been meeting at Noisebridge, a legendary anarchist hacker space in the Mission. I’ve written in the past about Noisebridge’s financial troubles, and thanks to our collective efforts, they’ve been able to stabilize — yet their expenses remain large. We’re gathering on Friday to continue fundraising for Noisebridge, to ensure survival of this vibrant creative community.

A flyer announcing an event called Literary devices: Writers and Hackers for Noisebridge. The image includes six portraits of authors and event details echo the accompanying post.

June 12, 7 pm, 272 Capp Street. These writers are incredible. Come hear their work!

For our event this year, we’re partnering with hackers who will create gadgets and objects to go with the stories our amazing writers have submitted, and we’ll have something like a competition for the hackers, with prizes of dubious value. We’ll also have a proper reading, a book raffle, food and drink, and lots of opportunities to mingle and explore the space. Come and hang out — it’ll be a blast!

I’ll be moderating on Friday, and to hear my own work, come hang out with me again on Sunday, June 14!

June is Pride month in San Francisco, and this year, I’m delighted to participate in the festivities thanks to FLORID, “San Francisco’s most delicate and debonair drag offering.” How cool is that??

Below is the description of the show from its organizers. I’m appearing around 5 pm with two flash fictions:

Find us the secret garden behind Chartreuse by RoJe, at 2095 Market Street at Church. Running monthly from June to October 2026, FLORID offers not only some of the finest drag artists working in the Bay Area, but also premium taste offerings and world premiere literature! One afternoon only – Sunday, June 14th, 3-7pm!

Our June offering is a nod to the upcoming Pride season: PANSIES ON PARADE! Featuring Chester Vanderbox, Fullout Fritzie, and Carlota diCarlo, FLORID promises pageantry and pomp as only consummate queens can deliver! Bask in the fresh air for an afternoon of festive frivolity with FLORID!

This year, Chartreuse is partnering with neighborhood mainstay The Pilsner Inn, to supply full bar service to its patrons. This allows FLORID to move from its previous all-inclusive ticket to a more accessible admission of $35, with performer tips and bar sales managed via cash or Venmo. For reservations: https://partiful.com/e/2kwXfYp3iJe0V2wwhWuh

Huge thanks to Becka for introducing me to Sean of FLORID. Becka runs BOOKS NOT BANS nonprofit that expands access to literature by delivering great books to people across the country. Book censorship in the United States is on the rise, and supporting this organization is a wonderful way to resist that. Becka also hosts incredible events locally, for example Aug 15 Valley of the Dolls showing at The Roxie theater at 5 pm. Watch the movie and engage with a vital cause!

The Undead

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, Wonderful Books4 Comments

Art and politics: who has anything to say on this topic? What about: Art and politics and zombies? In particular, a zombie Lenin, arisen from the mausoleum and aiming to seize control of the Kremlin. That’s the setup of a movie that Maya, the protagonist of Svetlana Satchkova’s novel THE UNDEAD manages to get produced in Moscow in 2017. Maya is a recent graduate of a fancy film school and all she wants to do is to make her artistic mark on the world. She really, really doesn’t want to anything to do with contemporary politics, and it’s really too bad for her that in Putin’s Russia there’s no more room for romp. Everyone is a potential target. Satchkova uses her protagonist to show us how Russia’s political machine has leveraged its control of free expression.

If you’re able, come help Sasha Vasilyuk and me celebrate Svetlana Satchkova’s humorous and illuminating English language debut, THE UNDEAD, at Globus Books later this month. Please RSVP.

Yellow flyer with red letters announcing the event -- details in the post.

Event details:
May 21, 6:30 PM
Globus Books, 332 Balboa Street, SF
Snacks!!

Please buy the book and support the bookstore, an anchor of transeurasian life here in San Francisco. They are performing such an incredible service for all of us!

Among her other, much more glamorous credits, Satchkova is a long-time contributor to Punctured Lines, the feminist blog about the literatures of the former USSR and diaspora that Yelena Furman and I run. Satchkova’s contributions include interviews with some of the preeminent writers working in Russian today, starting from introducing us to the work of Tatsiana Zamirovskaya back in 2020 (first published in Storytel and translated to English by Fiona Bell), her interviews with Anna Starobinets and Maria Stepanova, and including a translation of an interview Satchkova gave to Egor Mikhailov of Afisha Daily about a Russian-language novel of hers published in 2021, People and Birds.

(Those of you who read both Satchkova’s interview on Punctured Lines and THE UNDEAD will be able to easily answer the question: Which character in the novel shares the most biographical details with the author? Hint: it’s not Maya, the protagonist.)

For more insights into Satchkova’s writing process and inspiration about THE UNDEAD — the novel immerses us in Moscow’s film industry, how does she know all of this? — read Sasha Vasilyuk’s interview with her on Electric Literature.

If you can’t make the event, please buy and read the book and leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon (and Storygraph and everywhere else you can think of). Since all of our writerly brilliance must be encapsulated by commercial engines in order to have a chance to get out to readers out there.

Spring Opportunities

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Book panel, Event, ReadingsLeave a comment

Literary life in the Bay Area is booming, friends. No doubt in response to the increasing violence the world, people are writing, and they are coming together to share their work.

My friend, writer and librarian Monica Nolan is starting a writing group at Excelsior Branch Library. The first meetup is next Wednesday, March 25. And over in Oakland, my friend, writer Tahirah Dean is collaborating to start a generative Writer’s Circle at Nomadic Bookshop. Their first meeting is on Saturday, March 28. Both groups are free of charge and open to all interested writers.

On Monday, April 6, I will be heading over to Clio’s to moderate a panel of three Jewish-American writers with roots in what is now Ukraine. Poet Natalya Sukhonos will be introducing her third book of poems, Sunlight Trapped in Stone, in which she explores her background as an immigrant from Ukraine and recent work helping Ukrainian refugees as well as received historical memory of Holodomor famine and WWII stories of survival. Miryam (Bela) Sas will be introducing her memoir Milk in an Eggshell, forthcoming this fall, that traces her family’s roots to the town of Zbaraż (now in Ukraine, formerly Poland) and connects her family’s story of survival to their struggles after immigration to the United States. The title of our panel, The Memory Picture, comes from the work of Maggie Levantovskaya, whose work in progress Foreign Body: A Memoir of Lupus, Academia and Belonging is about negotiating chronic illness while attempting to become a scholar and process long-held feelings of alienation as a Jewish-Ukrainian immigrant.

The writers on this panel each have three, very different ways of connecting to contemporary Ukraine, as well as three very different artistic sensibilities. I will be asking them questions about the nuanced ways they work with memory, resisting easy answers and comparisons with the past, while pushing us to consider new perspectives. How can we resist the weaponization of traumatic stories for authoritarian aims?

I promise a rich conversation. For more details and to register, please go to this Eventbrite page.

And if you haven’t yet made it to Clio’s, a unique Oakland bookstore and bar, come just to check it out. The books are organized in chronological order!! Really, think about it! The bar serves delicious drinks and tinned fish for snacks. It’s so hip! The place opened a couple of years ago and has been thriving. If you’re lucky, you’ll meet poet Josh Peralta there. He helps to run events among many other things. Buy his book and please buy all the books to support all the writers.

And if you feel inspired and want to improve your craft, consider taking one of the fiction classes my friend Evgeniya Dame is offering this Spring. Your choices are: ELEVATE YOUR CRAFT: FICTION WORKSHOP [in person on Stanford Campus], THE ARC OF THE STORY [in person at Left Margin Lit, Berkeley], or SPRING CLEAN YOUR STORY: A STEP BY STEP REVISION GUIDE [online through Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance].

Best Literary Translations and Baltimore

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn book, Event, Publication, Readings, TranslationLeave a comment

Three years ago, in preparation for a literary reading in support of Ukraine, I asked a Kyiv-based poet Olga Bragina for the permission to translate her poems. I’d been reading her poems on Facebook and had become a fan, and I had an idea of how she might sound in my English. Though I’d been writing in English for a couple of decades at that point, as a translator I was a newbie. But, I dared. And Olga kindly took a chance on me.

It’s very rewarding that one of my translations of her poems, first published by Consequence, has been selected to appear in Best Literary Translations 2026, an anthology coming out from Deep Vellum Press. This poem was chosen by the new U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze, and also by the series co-editors, Noh Anothai, Wendy Call, Öykü Tekten and Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún. (Wendy Call is the editor I’ve been most directly in touch with, and I’m so impressed with her energy and dedication.)

A book with a purple cover displayed on the background of mossy bricks Best Literary Translations 2026 U.S. Poet Laureate ARTHUR SZE Guest Editor Noh Anothai Wendy Call Oyku Tekten Kola Tubosun Series Co-editors

It’s a beautiful book that collects a great many powerful and unexpected voices. For a reader, it’s a thrilling ride. Please pre-order a copy from the publisher, and ask your library to order a copy. Rate and review to amplify!

Russia’s war against Ukraine continues. Most of you have probably seen the reporting about Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s electric grid, among other horrors. As creative writers, my peers and I respond to this aggression in a variety of ways from a wide range of our subjective positions. If you can be in Baltimore on March 6th this year, come to the event I describe below to hear 26 (!!) of us.

We’re calling this event Eastern European Voices for Resistance and Reinvention. Take a look at our amazing flyer, designed by Ena Selimović of Turkoslavia translation collective and journal.

Background: Blue with a black X in the lower right corner Foreground: Words in black read : Resistance + Reinvention Words in Yellow Read: Eastern European Voices March 6, 7:00-9:30 pm Library Nineteen 606 S. Ann St, Baltimore MD, 21231 Words in white read : A benefit reading for Ukraine Words in white read:This one-of-a-kind reading brings together writers from Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet countries who now make their homes across the United States. Taking place during the 2026 AWP Conference, the event celebrates a growing circle of poets, prose writers, and translators from complex, cross-cultural identities whose work is shaped by displacement and immigration, survival and resilience. Featuring Words in white read: Alina Adams, Valerie Bandura, Svetlana Binshtok, Daniel Blokh, Katie Farris, Katarzyna Jakubiak, Victoria Juharyan, Andrea Jurjevic, Ilya Kaminsky, Julia Kolchinsky, Maria Kuznetsova, Ellen Litman, Olga Livshin, olga mikolaivna, Asya Partan, Irina Reyn, Ena Selimović, Lucy Silbaugh, Lana Spendl, Alina Stefanescu, Natalya Sukhonos, Vlada Teper, Katherine E. Young, Tatsiana Zamirovskaya, Olga Zilberbourg, and Lena Zycinsky.

For more details, take a look at our Eventbrite page. If you’re able to attend, please do register. We expect this event to sell out. Please bring friends and share with people you know in Baltimore and Washington, DC area. And whether or not you can make it, donate to Ukraine TrustChain or your favorite organizations that support Ukraine.

Stories on Stage

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Book review, Event, Links, Prose review, Publication, Publishing, Readings, short story4 Comments

I’m delighted to announce that on Sunday, February 8, 2026 my work will be featured in a reading in Davis, CA called Stories on Stage. A professional actor Eileen Hoang will perform my story “Doctor Sveta” from LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES.

The event starts at 4 pm at Sudwerk Brewing Company in Davis, CA. I can’t wait to see how Eileen might interpret my story “Doctor Sveta,” a historical fiction set during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Huge thanks to organizer, author Jeri Howitt, for putting this together, to the whole team behind the event, and to writer Karolina Letunova for recommending my book.

This weekend, I spent an afternoon with a group of about thirty high school students who identify as writers. They banded together to organize Women’s Youth Writing Association (WYWA) with chapters in four local high schools and invited me and Leyla Brittan to give a talk about our writing and writing careers. The participants asked savvy questions about building characters, addressing hyphenated identities on the page, overcoming blocks, finding submissions opportunities, and experimenting with genres. In the face of ever-increasing violence and political instability in the country and in the world, I found this event particularly nourishing. These youths are so talented and motivated!

I have three more links for you today.

  • I reviewed a collection Stories from the Edge of the Sea by a Vietnamese-American writer Andrew Lam for The Common. I’m a big fan of Andrew’s work, and I argue in the essay that he really expands and complicates our ideas of what a short story can be. Also, soup.

  • I reviewed a novel The Disappearing Act by a Russian author in exile, Maria Stepanova, translated by her long-term collaborator, poet Sasha Dugdale for On the Seawall. Writing this piece, I made up a pseudo-psychological term “the beast anxiety” to describe the state of mind of Stepanova’s protagonist. Then, I immediately diagnosed myself with the symptoms.

  • On Punctured Lines this month, read an excerpt from Nadezhda in the Dark, a novel written in verse by Ukrainian-French-American writer Yelena Moskovich. My tagline for this book: The Iliad for post-Soviet Jewish dykes. It’s wild.

Meet me in Washington, DC; my parents’ novel; and more good things

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, Newsletter, prize, review, Wonderful BooksLeave a comment

I’m heading to the East Coast for a conference next week, and am using an opportunity to present my work and (re)connect with writers and readers in Washington, DC area. On December 16 at 6 pm, come to “A Literary Lagniappe,” a reading and open mic by friends of Bergstrom Books, a foreign-language books purveyor in Kensingon, MD.

This event, hosted by a nearby Kensington Row Bookshop (3786 Howard Ave, Kensington, MD), will have a Central and East European focus, and will include original work, translation, and music. As you can tell from the flyer, we’re planning to keep it festive! Please register on Eventbrite and share with friends.

Translator and poet Katherine E. Young might read from her translations of Azerbaijani writer Akram Aylisli. Ena Selimović, Yugoslav-born translator and a co-founder of one of my favorite literary magazines, Turkoslavia, will read from Tatjana Gromača’s novella Black, newly translated. Roman Kostovski, a translator, musician, and publisher of Plamen Press, that specializes in books in translation from Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (and published Aylisli’s PEOPLE AND TREES), might perform some music as well as read! Greg Bergstein, my fellow St. Petersburgian who takes inspiration from both James Joyce and Daniil Kharms might read one of his fictions.

***

In other news, check out Lina Turygina’s essay “Thinking Reeds and Foolish Weeds: On Emigration and Adaptation.” In it, Turygina (a Harvard Ph.D. student!) compares my stories with the work of Nina Berberova (!!!) –an iconic writer of the first wave of Russian emigration. “Navigating her position as a bicultural writer, Zilberbourg moves fluidly between languages, omitting details in one version, using grammar creatively in another, and always finding new ways to adapt.” My next story is going to have to feature the burdock plant — I have so many associations!

***

As some of you know, in the 60s and 70s, my dad was in a popular student rock band in Leningrad, “The Green Ants.” They performed at his university and also toured the country in the summers as a part of student work brigades.

The members of the band worked with difficult teens in Karelia, built an oil pipeline in Kazakhstan, worked on railway construction, entertained locals at a restaurant on the Kola peninsula, and at nights played rock shows, bringing Western music to Soviet audiences. They also composed their own songs and fell in love and got in trouble with authorities over set lists. Playing rock music in the USSR meant making their own electric guitars, “borrowing” amplifiers from official organizations, and creatively adapting material for approval by the censorship bureaus.

Recently, my parents started taking creative writing classes and transformed my dad’s oral stories about the band into a novel WHEN ROCK-N-ROLL WAS GREEN. The book is now available for sale in Russian–look for it wherever books are sold. And if you’re in San Francisco, come to the presentation at the Richmond Library on Sunday, January 11 at 2 pm. (In Russian language, mostly. I expect songs!)

One last good thing for today: a tiny, three-paragraph-long essay on my recent reading helped me win Jewish Book Council’s Jewish Book Month & The Bet­sy Hotel Writer’s Con­test (scroll for the essay) — and later this year, I’ll be spending a few days at the Betsy Hotel in Miami, working on my new novel.