Author: Olga Zilberbourg

Olga Zilberbourg’s English-language debut LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES (WTAW Press) explores “bicultural identity hilariously, poignantly,” according to The Moscow Times. It also dives into topics of bisexuality and immigrant parenthood. Anthony Marra called it “…a book of succinct abundance, dazzling in its particulars, expansive in its scope,” and Karen Bender said, “Olga Zilberbourg is a writer to read right now.” Zilberbourg’s writing has appeared in World Literature Today, The Believer, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Born in Leningrad, USSR in a Russian-speaking Jewish family, she makes her home in San Francisco, California. She has published four collections of stories in Russia, including most recent Задержи дыхание [Hold Your Breath] from Vremya Press. She serves as a consulting editor at Narrative Magazine and as a co-facilitator of the San Francisco Writers Workshop. Together with Yelena Furman, she has co-founded Punctured Lines, a feminist blog about literature from the former Soviet Union. She is currently at work on her first novel.

Spring Events

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, Links, Publication, Readings, short story, TranslationLeave a comment

“My son wants to take the streetcar. My daughter doesn’t. She doesn’t want to walk, either.” A new fiction of mine, “A Train is Coming,” appears in the upcoming issue of Mom Egg (MER) Review 23, copy available for purchase as a PDF and in print. If you want to hear me read it out loud on Zoom, register for the issue release party (free), where I’m delighted to share the stage with my friend, poet Olga Livshin, among others.

If you can only make it to one Zoom-based Olga Z event this month, I strongly encourage you to come to the translation salon I’ll be MCing on April 17th. Coorganized by translator Ilze Duarte and hosted by WTAW Press (that published my collection), this event will bring to you some of the leading literary translators of the English-speaking world, representing writers from Brazil, India, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and China. Readers of this newsletter will recognize the names of Boris Dralyuk, who translates Andrey Kurkov, and Katherine E. Young, the translator of Akram Aylisli. It so happens that all of the translators on this reading are also writers and poets themselves, and I only wish I had the time to interview them about how they combine their own writing with their translation projects. One thing for sure, they’re masters of the English letters, opening worlds into other languages and cultures for us. Register (it’s a virtual, Zoom-based event)! This will be fun.

Bay Area locals: I have one more event to invite you to. On May 4, at 1 pm, I’ll be taking a part in a brand new Jewish Arts & Bookfest, being organized at the UC Berkeley’s Magnes collection, “one of the world’s preeminent Jewish museums” (I’m just learning about it too). I’m moderating a panel we called Between War and Peace, on the role of Russian literature in the work of Soviet-born Jewish American writers, featuring Margarita Meklina, Tatyana Sundeyeva, and Sasha Vasilyuk. How did we get from worshipping Pushkin, Akhmatova, and Bulgakov to writing about Soviet Jewish–and often female–experiences? How do the structures and ideas of Russian and Soviet lit continue to affect our own storytelling? How does the popularity of Russian lit in the US intersect with our USSR-formed experiences of it, and what do we do with the image of a “Russian writer” as a bearded white (and ethnically Russian) man? Following my conversation with Marat Grinberg, I have ever more questions. Please join me.

And to continue the theme of Soviet-born writers, I’m leaving you with the recording from the event that took place in Los Angeles in March, a reading by this amazing group of writers born in the USSR, and translators working with the post/Soviet experience. Thank you to Olga Livshin for capturing and editing this video. We called this event Diaspora Writers Against War, and we’re continuing to do what we can to raise funds in support of Ukraine. Please donate to Ukraine TrustChain.

Los Angeles, Zoom, and new publications

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Essay, Event, Links, Publication, Readings, short storyLeave a comment

I’m delighted to invite you to a one of a kind event happening in Los Angeles on March 28: a reading at the Wende Museum by eighteen writers and translators from the former USSR. We’re coming together to share our work, to get to know each other, and also to eat Ukrainian food (a Ukrainian food truck is expected!) and to support Ukraine.

Register on Eventbrite and if you can’t come, please share this with your friends in LA. Irina Reyn will be there! Katya Apekina! Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry! Our star translators and poets! Did I mention eighteen readers? Each of them, a star.

Expect humor; tales and poems of sex, identity crises, parenting, cultural intersections, immigration, and war. The Wende Museum is dedicated to art and artifacts from the Cold War era, and they are currently running an exhibit called “Undercurrents II: Archives and the Making of Soviet Jewish Identity,” which aligns so closely to what many of us write about. The museum kindly agreed to stay open late for us, until 6 pm, and we’re encouraging people to get there early so that they can tour the exhibit. So: register!

For friends who can’t make it to LA, I have a Zoom event this coming Monday, March 17, 7-8 pm Pacific. Together with writers Jen Siraganian, former Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, and Christin Rice, author of The ABC’s of Pandemic Parenting (Permutation Press), we will be reflecting on the 5th anniversary of the pandemic lockdown. The lockdown has changed our lives in ways that we still feel today. I find it useful to recall the first day, week, month of it, and so I plan to read from my diary–the notes that I managed to capture in the midst of the insanity. To tune in, register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/M-q9F0MfRimjwisnh0uaLQ

I published two new creative pieces in the past month:

  • “Where does your motherland begin? Does it begin with a picture in a primer, with treasured friends who live down the street? With your mother’s song?”

    Radio Baltica, an Essay, about the teenage experience of growing up during my country’s collapse–it’s all about the music of the era and, of course, The Beatles. Thanks to Tint Journal based in Graz, Austria for publishing this piece. I recorded an audio track, so you can hear me reading this essay out loud. Also included is a link to a Spotify playlist where I collected most of the songs I reference. I limited myself to only one Beatles tunes, to be polite, I guess. Alla Pugacheva is here to enchant!
  • “A seven-year-old girl falls in love with a book and tells herself, I want to read every book in the world.”

    New story: “A Woman of Learning,” in Weavers Literary Review. No link here because this mag is print only for now. I have a couple of copies, so let me know if you want one — or feel free to order and support the publishers. The magazine by Moazzam Sheikh and Amna Ali focuses on South Asian American writing, and they have a very strong curatorial vision. I’m honored to have my story included, especially given that my geographies aren’t an immediate match.

I’m taking a break from book reviewing at the moment; that being said, I want to point out two book-related pieces I wrote:

  • To accompany my recent review of Avtodya Panaeva’s The Talnikov Family, I interviewed the translator Fiona Bell as well as Panaeva scholar Margarita Vaysman. To learn more about an incredible 19th century Russian female writer, a woman who helped run a most influential literary magazine, do read this Q&A: Narrating a Violent Childhood on Punctured Lines–here are so many insights!
  • I never miss a chance to gush about a favorite writer. This time, the question “what are you reading now?” from The Common arrived just as I was finishing Bohumil Hrabal’s I Served the King of England.

Berkeley Reading and New Publications

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Book panel, Book review, Event, interview, Publication, Readings, review, short story4 Comments

Next week, February 26 at 7 pm, I’ll be reading my work as a part of a long-standing Lyrics & Dirges reading series at Pegasus Books in downtown Berkeley (2349 Shattuck Ave).

I have neither a lyric, nor a dirge, but I might read the latest version of my novel opening, to see how it runs. Hope to see some of you there!

Whether or not you can make it, do read a story of mine just out from Paper Brigade Daily, “Dodo’s Graduation.” I drafted this fiction in June 2021 and workshopped it on Zoom, and the piece is a reflection on the aftereffects of COVID-era lockdown, the San Francisco version.

Thanks to those of you who were able to attend my Zoom conversation with Marat Grinberg about his book The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf (Brandeis UP), hosted by the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. For those of you who weren’t able to make it, here’s the YouTube recording — where I got to gush about some of my favorite books growing up. The list of all the books mentioned is in the comments below.

Last but not least, here’s my latest book review — and one of the trickiest I’ve ever written: The Lady of the Mine by Sergei Lebedev, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, in On the Seawall. Boris Fishman reviewed this book for the New York Times, and his piece is worth reading for the humor, but if you want to know what the book is about, read my piece.

January Event and Recent News

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Awards, Essay, prize, Publication, review, short story, Wonderful Books2 Comments

I’ve got a Zoom event coming up that I’ve been working toward for over a year. On January 22, at 5 pm Pacific, I will be in conversation with Marat Grinberg about his book, The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf (brilliantly reviewed in LARB by Yelena Furman), which gave me language to describe my own sense of identity. This event is hosted by the Oregon Jewish Museum, tickets cost $5, and if you register and can’t make it, they’ll send you a recording! And I hope you can make it. The magic of Zoom!

The last few months have been busy for me, and I have a few things to report.

Back in November, a new short story of mine appeared in the Teatles, a fanzine out of Liverpool, England (!). If you’re on Instagram, their feed is all about the Beatles and tea! Yes, I’m excited. Did I mention that my story is being read in Liverpool??

Для моих русскоязычных читателей: смотрите “Ходики”, видео Алексея Зинатулина и АРТотеки Берёзовый сказ по рассказу Ольги Гренец из сборника Задержи дыхание. // Aleksey Zinatulin from Tver created a short film based on my story “The Clock.” First published in English at Tin House, online edition, this story is included in my collection LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES (WTAW Press).

My story The Question, published earlier in 2024, received the Editors’ Choice Award from the magazine Scoundrel Time, as well as a Pushcart Prize nomination. Huge thanks to the editors Karen E. Bender and Paula Whyman!

I published four (4!) book reviews in the past two months, some of which took over a year to draft and place. It’s a lot of fun and a lot of work, and I’d be overjoyed if anyone wanted to continue the conversation with me about any of these books:

Lastly, an update about the drama around my kids’ San Francisco public elementary school. The good news is that we were able to push back against the district, and get it to rescind all the school closures. At least for next year. Here’s the Op-Ed I wrote for the Bay Area Reporter about my kids’ experience with our school.

Litquake Events

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Once again, it’s Litquake season in San Francisco! My schedule is, unfortunately, being hijacked by the fact that my kids’ amazing local public elementary school, Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, is in peril as a result of the district’s financial mismanagement, and in the last 10 days I’ve been involved in helping to organize 2 rallies and multiple other initiatives to try to #saveourschools.

But! Litquake is not to be missed and there are so many exciting and important events that are on the schedule. Check it out.

I’m participating in three events. The first will be this coming Monday, 6:30 pm at 297 Page Street. Called Golden State: Stories about Life on the Left Coast, it’ll feature about 15 readers, including me, performing our flash fictions. This event is currently sold out on Eventbrite, but don’t let that stop you. Tickets are free, and Eventbrite isn’t that reliable as a predictor of attendance for free events. Come!

October 26, the last day of the festival, is also when Lit Crawl happens: starting at 5 pm that Saturday, literary readings will take over the Mission neighborhood. I am helping to organize two events.

At 5 pm, come to Manny’s for a reading we’re calling Passionate Thinking in Diaspora to hear a fantastic group of writers who were born in Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova. This is our third time doing an event at Lit Crawl, and we’re excited to return with all new stories. Find more details about the event, including our bios, on Punctured Lines.

To continue Lit Crawl extravaganza, I invite you to follow me to Noisebridge, where at 6:30 pm on October 26, I’ll be helping to emcee a presentation of the San Francisco Writers Workshop–the longest running writing workshop probably anywhere!–featuring our current moderators and regulars, with stories spanning different genres, centuries, continents (including imagined ones). Can’t wait to hear and celebrate this crew. Find more details on the San Francisco Writers Workshop’s page.

And yes, I’m heading to the afterparty at the end of the festival. Dunno if there will be any awkward dancing this year, but I promise to contribute my share of awkward yet impassioned conversation on any topic you like. Including, yes, the school district, omg.

Olga

Recent Publications and a Submissions Opportunity

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Book review, Newsletter, Publication, Publishing, TranslationLeave a comment

Friends, one day when we’re all old and gray, please remember to ask me what it takes for a Soviet-born Russian speaker to establish herself not only as a writer of English, but also as a translator into English.

Let me just say that I’m exorbitantly proud of myself for publishing my translations in two more US-based literary magazines. I’m so grateful to the Kyiv-based poet Olga Bragina for trusting me with her work and to the editors of the magazines for seeing what I saw in Olga’s poetry. It is so relatable and so heartbreaking.

Here are the links:

Two poems by Olga Bragina in World Literature Today

Three poems by Olga Bragina in Consequence Forum

Those of you who are writers might be interested to know that WTAW Press has asked me to be one of the jurors for their second annual Kevin McIlvoy Book Prize. If you have an unpublished prose manuscript (novels, memoirs, narrative nonfiction, essay and story collections, and hybrid works), the submissions are open until December 31, 2024. Please submit — I’d love to read your work!

As many of you know, WTAW Press published my collection LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES. This book turned 5 years old in September — and it’s not too late to buy it, read, and review on Goodreads and Amazon. All comments are always appreciated. Historically speaking, I haven’t always taken criticism well, but you know, I’m learning, and it’s good for me!

Three more links to this month’s publications:

My review of Shahzoda Samarqandi’s delightfully complex novel Mothersland, written originally in Persian and Tajik and translated to English by Shelley Fairweather-Vega from Russian by Youltan Sadykova. To write this review, I had to study up on the history of Soviet cotton production and the Aral Sea disaster.

On Punctured Lines, the blog that I co-run with Yelena Furman, we had two new pieces this month. First, my Q&A with Sasha Vasilyuk, whose novel about a Soviet WWII soldier with a secret Your Presence is Mandatory I highly recommend. Second, Yelena’s Q&A with Michele A. Berdy, a translator and editor extraordinaire who moved from US to the USSR in the 1970s. Wow, does she have stories to tell!

Reading at Martuni’s and new publications

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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:

Thank you for reading! Keep in touch!

Olga

The Question and The Racket

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, Publication, short story1 Comment

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!

May Events and a New Interview

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, interview6 Comments

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

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Book panel, Event, Like Water, Newsletter, Readings3 Comments

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.