I grew up the eldest of a joyful and tumbling family of twelve (10 children), in a small town in Upstate New York, in the midst of a tightknit Russian community. My childhood education came from two parallel worlds: the old traditional world my grandparents had brought from Tsarist Russia and salvaged with the utmost gentleness, and the contemporary world of Western thought and popular culture. 

At age 17, I moved to Russia for a year. Upon my return, I finished NYU (BA in English Literature, MA Education). I taught for a bit in an NYC public school, occasionally worked as a translator and writer, and then moved to Sydney, Australia, with my husband. 

Here are my stories.