Category: short story

Sweet Dreams

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn short storyLeave a comment

“Having reached the age of 55, my mother has decided to try out retirement. She won’t stop working—there are no opportunities for advancement in that—but she’s decided to branch out and sign up for an advanced English class after work. Her older sister is taking the same class, and my mother can’t let her sister surpass her at anything. This week, their teacher assigned them a few song lyrics to translate. My mother, determined to be an A-student, messages me for help. . . .”

Continue reading this story on Bulb Culture Collective.

It’s an older piece that was first published in Mad Hatters’ Review 12: Back from the USSR, edited by Alex Cigale and Mariya Gusev. I remain deeply grateful to the editors for taking my piece and for assembling that folio that introduced me to many fellow ex-Soviet authors I have been following ever since.

Bulb Culture Collective is a wonderful venue that gives a second life to the previously published stories and poems from online magazines that do not longer exist. I love seeing this story back online.

Make Peace with the Cake in the Museum of Americana

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Publication, short storyLeave a comment

I’m grateful to my friends at the Museum of Americana for publishing my story, “Make Peace with the Cake” in their Food Court section. Huge thanks to Lauren Alwan for editing!

Our Leo was six or seven weeks old when we received advice from fellow Russians, as we came to call ourselves after twenty years in the US. They had two kids in elementary school and when they shared their parenting philosophy, Sioma and I listened.

“We don’t do kids birthday parties,” they said. 

Birthday parties were a giant waste of time, they said. Treated as mandatory by middle-class Bay Area parents, no matter the racial or ethnic background, these utrenniki were all alike: a bouncy house at a playground, pizza, cake. One couldn’t drop the children off but had to hang out and talk to the adults. If you couldn’t sustain a conversation about baseball scores or local politics, forget it. “Remember how it was back home?” the dad asked.

TO CONTINUE READING: https://themuseumofamericana.net/2023/11/07/americana-stories-the-food-court-fiction-2/

Natalia Malachowskaja’s fiction on Punctured Lines

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Book review, short story, TranslationLeave a comment

Publishing this story on Punctured Lines is one of the top highlights of my career as an editor so far. This publication was many years in the making. Many of my friends know Malachowskaja’s name well: she is legendary in the Soviet feminist community as one of the founders of a samizdat magazine Woman and Russia. As a result of this publication Malachowskaja, together with her fellow co-founders, was exiled from the USSR back in 1980. She has settled in Austria and has been writing and publishing books of fiction and non-fiction as well as participating in the art scene.

I believe this is her first work of fiction published in the English translation. The story, written in 2000s, fictionalizes some of her experiences from the 1970s that stood behind her feminist work. Don’t miss!

Ugrinovich and the Sex Giant: Fiction by Anna Natalia Malachowskaja, translated by Anastasia Savenko-Moore

“Hold Your Breath Until the Future Comes” published in The Bare Life Review

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Publication, short storyLeave a comment

I’m very happy to have a longer story of mine published in the new issue of The Bare Life Review, a magazine for immigrant and refugee writers. Issue number 4 (they are published annually) has a particular focus on climate change. I’m deeply grateful to Maria Kuznetsova for her insightful edits that helped this story to become more dynamic.

The buzzer rings. The baby must’ve felt the quake in my body. He loses the nipple and screams. I’d passed out for a few minutes, but I’m certainly awake now, and I too want to scream. Did the baby’s diaper leak on my stomach just now, or is it sweat and breastmilk pooling between us?


The air ventilation system broke in my building a few days ago. It’s June in Brooklyn, and the heat is unbearable. I nursed Anton on the couch in the living room, and my breasts are covered in liquid. He’s tired, unhappy. It feels like the two of us are bearing the brunt of the global warming, and there’s nowhere to run.

The buzzer rings again.

https://barelifereview.square.site/product/tblr-vol-4/1?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false

The Bare Life Review is a gorgeous print publication. To continue reading, please buy the mag!

I Give Up in Mumber Mag

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Publication, short storyLeave a comment

My flash “I Give Up” is now available in the second issue of Mumber Mag! I’m grateful to the editor Harry Leeds for his thoughtful comments on this piece, helping to make it less wordy and amplifying the sense of movement and breathlessness with which its overwhelmed speaker addresses the world.

The next crayon hit him right between the eyes. The next two hit the windshield and the car swerved, coming dangerously close to a refrigerator truck. My husband screamed.

In response, the two-year old started screaming.

https://www.mumbermag.me/2020/12/28/i-give-up/

The Mumber Two (OMG that title) is a delightful issue all around, worth reading cover-to-cover!

No Horse Required published in CALYX

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Publication, short storyLeave a comment

So proud to have a story in the current issue of CALYX. I wrote the first draft of “No Horse Required” in August 2008, that’s 12 years ago! Two years ago, the editors of this magazine requested edits, and one year ago, they accepted it for publication. A version of this story appeared in my 2010 Russian-language collection. For context, the story opens in 1992, and altogether it’s been quite a journey!

When I was thirteen years old, I yearned for a passionate and committed friendship modeled after the books I was reading. Never mind that I was a girl and that, in these books, friendship was reserved for a particular relationship between boys and men. These books were standard fodder for earnest Soviet children, complemented by selections from the international library: The Three Musketeers, Ivanhoe, The Pathfinder. I searched for blood friends, for true soul mates among my classmates, but the boys preferred computer games and the girls wanted to watch American movies.

https://www.calyxpress.org/shop/vol-321/

The issues are available on sale through the mag’s website. I have a few copies, DM me if you want one.

“How to Survive Shabbat Dinner,” a new story

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My story “How to Survive Shabbat Dinner” appears in 580 Split, an issue subtitled “Message Undeliverable.” Read it here!

Spatzi escaped from East Berlin two weeks before the wall came down. This has been the grounding irony of her life. It’s nearly thirty years later, and she lives in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the world, and drives a ridesharing car. Her favorite windshell jacket has turned from brown to puke-green from sun exposure. But hey, it now better matches the upholstery of the car seats.

Once in awhile she thinks about moving back to Berlin.

https://580split.org/#howtosurviveshabbatdinner

Two stories, Companionship and Practice Relaxing Bedtime Ritual, on YouTube

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn book, Like Water, short storyLeave a comment

I uploaded two stories from my book, Companionship and Practice a Relaxing Bedtime Ritual to YouTube as a part of Annie Kim’s Way Off-Site virtual reading event to bring together people who decided not to go to AWP20 writers conference. Missing the conference was sad, and this turned out to be a really fun exercise.

A couple of reminders:

My book’s available for sale at WTAW Press

All the Way Off-Site readings can be found on Annie Kim’s YouTube Channel

Therapy. Or Something

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Like Water, Publication, short storyLeave a comment

A short story from my book is up on Ravishly today. It’s a quick read, and I hope, an entertaining one. This story is from the book’s middle, a lighter one, and also deeply connected with the other pieces from the collection. Both new motherhood and the relationships between grown children and parents are major threads.

I brought my mother to therapy with me today. Mother butted shoulders with me to march into the therapist’s office a step ahead. “I have to tell you right away, I don’t see why my daughter needs therapy,” she said, stopping in the middle of the room, halfway to the couch. “She’s a little anxious and disorganized, but who isn’t? Frankly, I don’t believe in therapy.”

https://www.ravishly.com/therapy-or-something