This time, it’s a screenshot of a WhatApp message that freezes my stomach with dread and makes me want to vomit. It happens regularly now. Sometimes only from thought, other times it’s an image. It’s a message from a family member in Russia, in the previously beloved Saint Petersburg. Before, a video sent – young…
Tag: russia
NaNoWriMo 2020
A note: 20 October 2020. I have just now created a copy of a document I last opened in 2018. In 11 days, I will again try to complete NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The goal is simple enough: 50,000 words in 30 days – simple enough when broken down into elements of words, characters,…
A new world: The Dangerous Bride | Lee Kofman
It is a glorious, frightening, changing time. I’ve found myself seeking out words to describe the sensuous, the sinewy, the indelibly physical. I returned to the eroticism of Anaïs Nin – that complex, tumultuous, passionate woman I discovered in my teens – and in the process, was directed by Walter Mason to The Dangerous Bride…
On domestic violence in Russia
I wish I could address this topic with more eloquence and more authority. It is hard to put into words the sinking feeling I had when I read recently about the progress of a law through the Russian courts, which will essentially make domestic violence permissible under Russian law. Again. I wish my words could be…
Birch: Hermitage Cats
One day, I went yet again to the State Hermitage Museum. It was well before opening and while I stood taking photos of the huge expanse of Dvortsovaya Ploshchad, Palace Square – the central heart of Saint Petersburg – a tabby cat wandered across the warming cobbles, brushing confidently against my leg. The cat perched…
Review: There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour’s Baby
How have I never heard of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya before? Admittedly, my reading of contemporary Russian literature is dependent on the availability of English translations, since my Russian reading ability is torturously slow. The title of this collection of works appeared in my Goodreads suggestions: There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour’s…
Birch: Memory External
Without intentionally writing it into the manuscript, the role of memory is a key driving force in Birch. Alyona, the central character, begins her story in purposeful denial of her family’s memory. She is forced to contend with the result of this denial when she becomes the primary caretaker of her grandmother, Irina Alexandrovna. Irina’s…
Birch: Hermitage (an introduction)
A mass of first and second hand research contributed to the material that resulted in the manuscript I’ve called Birch. Much of it didn’t make the final cut, and some is present only in small glimpses. I’m hoping to share the details and experiences I encountered in this blog. This first entry features one of…
Not from this place
I’ve recently finished reading a book set in Saint Petersburg. I find I’m deliberately seeking out contemporary writing in this setting, partly as vicarious way to be back there. I won’t name the novel, but it left me disappointed. More than disappointed, I felt dismayed. What bothered me so much was that the concept of…
Welcome!
Hi and welcome to my blog! I’ve been meaning to start this for a while now. Procrastination is the enemy of anything creative, and writing in particular. As an introduction, my name is Dasha Maiorova. I’m a writer living in south Sydney. My name is Russian – I was born in Belarus back in the…
Dasha Maiorova 