Dear Punctured Lines community — please help us spread the word about the next San Francisco Bay Area reading by writers born in the former USSR. This event is a part of San Francisco’s annual Lit Crawl festival and will take place at Ruth’s Table (3160 21st Street) on October 25, 2025 at 5 pm.
Continue reading “Owning Fear, Reaching for Freedom: Post-Soviet Writers + Translators Speak Out”Thanks to those of you who could attend our event, Born in the USSR: Diaspora Writers Against War, hosted by the Wende Museum on March 28. We loved having you as our audience and hope to continue the conversations in various ways.
Thank you for donating to Ukraine Trust Chain. Ukraine needs all of our support. Please continue to spread the word and donate here: https://www.ukrainetrustchain.org/
The video from our event is now online:
Continue reading “Video from Born in the USSR: Diaspora Writers Against War”
This one of a kind reading brings together Soviet-born writers as they weave together an intricate story of identity, memory, cultural intersections, immigration, and war. From fiction to poetry, memoir and journalism, and work in translation, the reading presents a deep dive into the individual and collective experiences of the Soviet-born diaspora in the U.S. This free event includes a fundraiser in support of humanitarian aid in Ukraine and aligns with The Wende Museum’s current exhibition “Undercurrents II: Archives and the Making of Soviet Jewish Identity.” Autographed books will be on sale, courtesy of Village Well.
Hosted by The Wende Museum, readers include poets, writers, and translators: Katya Apekina, Yelena Furman, Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, Julia Kolchinsky, Arina Kole, Maria Kuznetsova, Olga Livshin, Ruth Madievsky, Ainsley Morse, Luisa Muradyan, Jane Muschenetz, Asya Partan, Irina Reyn, Diana Ruzova, Timmy Straw, Vlada Teper, Sasha Vasilyuk, and Olga Zilberbourg.
Continue reading “Born in the USSR: Diaspora Writers Against War”
On October 26, 5-6 pm at Manny’s in San Francisco, Punctured Lines will be hosting an event as a part of San Francisco’s annual Lit Crawl. Please join us if you’re able and help spread the word!
Continue reading “Passionate Thinking in Diaspora with Writers from Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova”San Francisco Bay Area readers, take note: for the second year in a row, Punctured Lines is producing an event during San Francisco’s Lit Crawl.
On Saturday, October 21, 5 pm at 518 Valencia, a group of Bay Area authors will come together with poetry, stories and essays centered on Ukraine. Several of these authors have been regulars on our blog, and we’re delighted to introduce a few new names to our line up from last year.
Continue reading “Punctured Lines Authors at San Francisco’s Lit Crawl”Punctured Lines is happy to announce an in-person reading by seven women writers who emigrated from the former Soviet Union and now live in (or in one case, coming to visit) Los Angeles. This event follows the original Embattled Homeland reading during LitCrawl in San Francisco in 2022, with ex-Soviet immigrant writers living in the Bay Area. Like its San Francisco predecessor, the Los Angeles event is in support of Ukraine, which has been defending itself against Russia’s unprovoked attack for nearly a year. While the reading is free, we encourage people to donate to the vetted organizations below. Many thanks to Sasha Vasilyuk for organizing this event.
The reading will take place on Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7 pm at Stories Books & Cafe (1716 W. Sunset Blvd.). Please RSVP here.
Update: there has been a venue change. This event is now happening at Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia Street.
Punctured Lines is co-hosting a Lit Crawl reading by six Bay Area writers born in Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova. Shaken by the horrific tragedy of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we will read pieces exploring our connections, direct and indirect, to the part of the world we associate with home and exile, and where many of our friends and relatives are suffering as a result of the war. We work in the genres of nonfiction, literary and historical fiction, YA, flash, and other literary forms to tell our stories, and will read excerpts from our published and new work.
This event will take place at 5 pm on October 22nd at Blondie’s Bar Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia Street in San Francisco .
We’re happy to share the recording from the event we hosted on May 15, 2022, gathering writers who were born in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to Canada as children. Currently located all across Canada, from Montreal (Luba Markovskaia) to Vancouver (Maria Reva) with a definite hub around Toronto (Julia Zarankin, Lea Zeltserman, Maria Lioutaia, Maria Bloshteyn), these generous writers shared excerpts from their work and answered questions about living with hyphenated identities and building writing communities. Russia’s war in Ukraine was at the forefront of this conversation, as most of the writers and the participants have family and friends affected by the bombs. This event was a fundraiser, and we encourage everyone to continue donating to the organizations listed below.
Continue reading “Born in the USSR, Raised in Canada”Punctured Lines is delighted to bring you our next event–a reading and a Q&A with six established authors who were born in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to Canada as children. In their fiction and nonfiction they explore topics of multicultural identity, life under communism, Jewish culture, food, history, and making a home in a strange land.
Please register on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/born-in-the-ussr-raised-in-canada-a-reading-in-support-of-ukraine-tickets-315030252967
We began planning this event before Russia’s renewed, full-scale attack on Ukraine, and we want to acknowledge that this war is resonating deeply throughout the diasporic community. We feel that it’s particularly important for us to come together at this time, to listen to each other’s stories and to amplify each other’s voices and resources in support of the people of Ukraine in their fight against the Russian totalitarian regime. We also want to extend our support to those citizens of the Russian Federation resisting and fleeing from this regime.
*** This event will be recorded. ***
*** This event is a fundraiser and we encourage everyone to donate money directly to organizations supporting Ukraine and Russian protesters. Suggested donation starts at $5.
Organizations to support:
Donate directly to Ukraine’s military: https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-spetsrahunok-dlya-zboru-koshtiv-na-potrebi-armiyi
UNHCR Ukraine Emergency Relief Fund: https://give.unhcr.ca/page/100190/donate/1
JIAS Ukraine Refugee Response: https://jiastoronto.org/ukraine-crisis-update/
ROLDA, helping stranded animals/pets: https://rolda.org/breaking-news-ukraine/
Ukraine Trust Chain, helping evacuate civilians out of war zones: https://www.ukrainetrustchain.org/
Continue reading “Born in the USSR, Raised in Canada: A Reading in Support of Ukraine”Our friends The Cheburashki, “a growing collective of women & nonbinary writers who are emigres/refugees/first-generation from countries that were once a part of the Eastern bloc,” are hosting a reading in Philadelphia next week. Here’s a great place to find some camaraderie in this time of war and donate money for Ukrainian refugees.
This event is happening in conjunction with AWP, a poets and writers conference that will include several important events with USSR diaspora writers. We made a list.
Here’s their flyer and details of the event:
Details:
Poems and Stories by the Cheburashka Collective
March 24, 6-8 pm
Slought
4017 Walnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Punctured Lines 