Thanks to Ramunė Jonaitienė for this review in Tėviškės Žiburiai, the Lithuanian-Canadian weekly newspaper. Among the phrases I’m really grateful for is her description of my tone as “calm.” Ačiū, TŽ.
Archive for the ‘Life-writing’ Category
New Review in Lithuanian-Canadian Weekly
20 Sep 2012 at 20:18
Julija Šukys
Archives, Biography, Canada, Catholicism, Creative Nonfiction, Eastern Europe, Epistolophilia, Feminism, France, Friendship, Jerusalem, Journeys, Language and Multilingualism, Letters, Libraries, Life-writing, Lithuania, Memoir, Mothering, Ona Šimaitė, Paris, Translation, Uncategorized, Vilna Ghetto, Vilnius, Writing
On Writing About Terrible Things
13 Aug 2012 at 16:15
Julija Šukys
Biography, E-books, Eastern Europe, Epistolophilia, Friendship, Life-writing, Lithuania, Memory, Ona Šimaitė, Research, Uncategorized, Vilna Ghetto, Vilnius, Writing
A friend wrote me that she’d bought the Kindle version of Epistolophilia. She commented: “Really easy to read writing and I love the conversational style you use, although such a heavy topic. I find I have to read in doses. How did you keep from getting swallowed by sorrow while doing all the work and [...]
Author Interview in Foreword Reviews this Week
03 Jun 2012 at 13:05
Julija Šukys
Academia, Archives, Biography, Canada, Children, Creative Nonfiction, Domesticity, Eastern Europe, Editing, Epistolophilia, Essays, Exile, Feminism, France, Interviews, Journeys, Language and Multilingualism, Letters, Libraries, Life-writing, Lithuania, Marketing, Media, Mothering, Ona Šimaitė, Publicity, Publishing, Research, Reviews, Uncategorized, Vilna Ghetto, Vilnius, Virginia Woolf, Writing
Here’s an interview I did with ForeWord Reviews, a great publication that focuses on books published by independent presses. You can access the original here (scroll down to the bottom of the page): Conversational interviews with great writers who have earned a review in ForeWord Reviews. Our editorial mission is to continuously increase attention to [...]
Two New Books: Antanas Sileika Reviews Epistolophilia and We Are Here
29 Mar 2012 at 07:00
Julija Šukys
Antanas Sileika, Creative Nonfiction, Eastern Europe, Epistolophilia, Letters, Life-writing, Ona Šimaitė, Reviews, Uncategorized, Vilnius, Writing
The insightful and generous writer Antanas Sileika offers his read of two new books about Jewish Lithuania published by the University of Nebraska Press. One is mine, Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė. The other is Ellen Cassedy’s We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust. Sileika is an accomplished writer, with four books [...]
Mira Bartók Wins National Book Critics Circle Award
14 Mar 2012 at 08:23
Julija Šukys
Autobiography, Brain Injury, CNF Conversations, Contests and Prizes, Creative Nonfiction, Life-writing, Memory, Mental Illness, Mira Bartók, Mothering, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writing
Congratulations to Mira Bartók on winning the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography for The Memory Palace. The Circle says The Memory Palace “rose to the formal challenge of blending her mother’s journals, reflections on her mother’s mental illness and subsequent homelessness, and thoughts on her own recovery from a head injury to create [...]
On Chronology and Necessary Abandonment: Working with Letters and Diaries
08 Mar 2012 at 07:26
Julija Šukys
Archives, Chronology, Countdown to Publication, Creative Nonfiction, Epistolophilia, Letters, Life-writing, Memory, Ona Šimaitė, Research, Reviews, SheWrites, Structure, Uncategorized, Writing
The first review of Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė appeared a few days ago. And even though this isn’t my first book or review, it’s still a wild ride to have strangers reading my work. In her review of the book, Claire Posner points to a major challenge that I faced writing this [...]
Epistolophilia: A Few Thoughts on the Occasion of a Book’s Birth
16 Feb 2012 at 06:31
Julija Šukys
Archives, Biography, Children, Countdown to Publication, Creative Nonfiction, Domesticity, Eastern Europe, Epistolophilia, Friendship, Funding, Journeys, Letters, Libraries, Life-writing, Lithuania, Marketing, Memoir, Mothering, Ona Šimaitė, Publicity, Publishing, Research, SheWrites, Silence is Death, Uncategorized, Vilna Ghetto, Vilnius, Writing
The day before yesterday I received a note from my publisher saying that copies of my book had arrived in the warehouse, and that I could begin announcing its publication. Though my official date of publication is March 1, 2012, the baby’s come early. It’s a strange and great feeling to know that my book [...]
“Let us now praise famous men”: On Breaking Conventions and Women’s Biography
26 Jan 2012 at 08:25
Julija Šukys
Biography, Creative Nonfiction, Domesticity, Epistolophilia, Feminism, Life-writing, Mothering, Ona Šimaitė, Publishing, SheWrites, Uncategorized, Virginia Woolf, Writing
This morning I read a really interesting conversation with Michael Scammel, the biographer of Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn and Arthur Koestler. A lot of what Scammel said about his path to biography resonated with me. He describes having wanted to become a fiction writer in his twenties (just as I did), only to find that he “didn’t [...]
How Long Should a Book Take to Write? (On a Writer’s Natural Rhythms and Pace)
22 Dec 2011 at 06:09
Julija Šukys
Archives, Children, Countdown to Publication, Epistolophilia, Essays, Language and Multilingualism, Life-writing, Ona Šimaitė, Publishing, Research, Russia, SheWrites, Translation, Uncategorized, Writing
Recently, a fellow writer (who publishes short essays and pieces of travel writing) told me about a book she’d just finished reading. It was an excellent book she said, but added with wide eyes: “It took him seven years to write! That’s crazy. I could never do that.” I have this thing I do when [...]
CNF Conversations: An Interview with Nancy K. Miller (Part II)
29 Nov 2011 at 07:31
Julija Šukys
Academia, Archives, Autobiography, Biography, Children, CNF Conversations, Creative Nonfiction, Domesticity, Eastern Europe, Feminism, Jerusalem, Journeys, Judaism, Language and Multilingualism, Letters, Life-writing, Memoir, Nancy K. Miller, Orthodoxy, Publishing, Research, Russia, Siberia, Uncategorized, Writing
Nancy K. Miller. What They Saved: Pieces of Jewish Past. University of Nebraska Press, 2011. * This is Part II of a two-part interview. Click here to read Part I. Julija Šukys: I loved reading your descriptions of how you related to “The Old Country” before this quest. “Russia, a vast faraway, almost mythical kingdom [...]
