Reflections on Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, (Auto)Biography, Life-Writing, and the Essay
31 Jul 2012 at 09:54
Julija Šukys
Creative Nonfiction, Domesticity, Letters, Memory, Mothering, Multiple Sclerosis, Ona Šukienė, Personal Essays, Photographs, Research, Uncategorized, Writing
Today, I return to my manuscripts. I’ve got both an essay and a book that I abandoned unceremoniously some four months ago. I can’t wait to get back to them. But there were good reasons for my break from writing: there was our house in Gozo to pack up, our life to get back in [...]
18 Jun 2012 at 09:43
Julija Šukys
Canada, Children, Domesticity, Epistolophilia, Events, Gardening, Libraries, Mothering, Ona Šimaitė, Publicity, Publishing, Uncategorized
It’s been an amazing few weeks: there have been fantastic reviews of my book Epistolophilia appearing from coast to coast. I’ve been out to British Columbia, where I gave my first real public reading at the beautiful Vancouver Public Library, and we launched the book with a splash on June 7, 2012 in Montreal. It [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
06 Feb 2012 at 07:49
Julija Šukys
Autobiography, Biography, Brain Injury, Children, CNF Conversations, Creative Nonfiction, Domesticity, Memoir, Memory, Mental Illness, Mira Bartók, Mothering, Uncategorized, Writing
Mira Bartók, The Memory Palace. Free Press, 2011. “Even now, when the phone rings late at night, I think it’s her. I stumble out of bed ready for the worst. The last time my mother called was in 1990. I was thirty-one and living in Chicago. She said if I didn’t come home right away [...]
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 [...]
19 Jan 2012 at 04:22
Julija Šukys
Academia, Algeria, Archives, Biography, Catholicism, Children, Christianity, Countdown to Publication, Creative Nonfiction, Domesticity, Eastern Europe, Editing, Epistolophilia, Grad School, Journeys, Libraries, Lithuania, Mothering, Ona Šimaitė, Paris, Research, Residencies and Fellowships, Russia, Saints, SheWrites, Siberia, Silence is Death, Tahar Djaout, Uncategorized, Writing
This is Who-Man. My son and I invented him over breakfast this morning. Who-Man is a superhero whose arch-enemy is a many-eyed monster called “Crime.” Who-Man wears a bumpy suit (as you can see in Sebastian’s rendition of him above). The suit can shoot fire, but our hero rarely has to use this weapon. He [...]
07 Jan 2012 at 16:41
Julija Šukys
Canada, Children, Domesticity, Epistolophilia, Essays, Friendship, Journeys, Language and Multilingualism, Malta and Gozo, Mothering, Personal Essays, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writing
Ah, another year. Like most families, perhaps, ours does a year-end review on New Year’s Eve. We go through our calendar and reflect on what we’ve accomplished, experienced, and learned over the past 12 months. Looking back over that 2011 calendar, I realized that, for me, it was a year of laying groundwork: I prepared [...]
29 Nov 2011 at 07:31
Julija Šukys
Academia, Archives, Autobiography, Biography, CNF Conversations, Domesticity, Eastern Europe, Essays, Feminism, Jerusalem, Journeys, Judaism, Language and Multilingualism, Letters, Memoir, Nancy K. Miller, Publishing, Research, Russia, Uncategorized, Writing
Nancy K. Miller. What They Saved: Pieces of Jewish Past. University of Nebraska Press, 2011. * In her new memoir, What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past, Nancy K. Miller tells the story of how she reconstructed her family’s missing past from a handful of mysterious objects found in dresser drawers and apartment closets after [...]
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 [...]
