Reflections on Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, (Auto)Biography, Life-Writing, and the Essay
31 Mar 2010 at 08:59
Julija Šukys
Alternate Economies, Anthropology, Domesticity, Eastern Europe, Friendship, Gardening, Journeys, Margaret Paxson, Research, Russia, Siberia, Slavs, Villages, Writing
I’ve been reading my friend Margaret Paxson’s book, Solovyovo: The Story of Memory in a Russian Village. Paxson, an anthropologist, watched, interviewed and listened to the villagers of Solovyovo for many months to learn how they related to each other, to their land and to the past. Yesterday, shortly before going to a dinner party [...]
29 Mar 2010 at 09:39
Julija Šukys
Grad School, J. Edward Chamberlin, Journeys, Language and Multilingualism, Life-blood, Poetry, University of Toronto, Writing
J. Edward Chamberlin, If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?: Reimagining Home and Sacred Space. Pilgrim Press, 2003. Ted Chamberlin was one of my professors at the University of Toronto, and if you read his book, you’ll understand what a good teacher and storyteller he is. It weaves together tales about cowboy culture, [...]
26 Mar 2010 at 08:56
Julija Šukys
Algeria, Biography, Journeys, Research, Silence is Death, Tahar Djaout
I recently came across an article referring to my book, Silence is Death: The Life and Work of Tahar Djaout, in El Watan, a major Algerian newspaper. The piece’s author, Benhouna Bensadat Mustapha, writes about the Algerian national hero, Emir Abdelkader (or Abd El Kader), the Iowa town of Elkader that was named for him, [...]
I’m always on the prowl for new grants, fellowships and residencies. Grant money allows me to buy office supplies, books, pay for postage, daycare and to travel. In past six years, for example, my research has taken me to Paris, Toulouse, rural Lorraine, Vilnius, Jerusalem, California, Ohio, and New York. A couple weeks ago, I [...]
22 Mar 2010 at 17:38
Julija Šukys
Children, Domesticity, Feminism, Mothering, Virginia Woolf, Writing
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf asks a series of questions: Why have women traditionally written so little when compared with men? What needs to change in women’s lives in order to make writing possible? And why have women been so absent from literary history? The answer, she suggests, lies in the conditions [...]
Assia Djebar, Algerian White. Translated from the French by David Kelley and Marjolijn de Jager. Seven Stories Press, 2000. Several years ago, a few colleagues and I invited the Algerian author Assia Djebar, who was in Toronto for the International Writers’ Festival, to dinner. We were in the process of putting together a literary anthology [...]
17 Mar 2010 at 08:22
Julija Šukys
Adoption, Archives, Autobiography, Biography, Children, Eastern Europe, Feminism, Letters, Life-writing, Lithuania, Lituanus, Mothering, Ona Šimaitė, Ona Šukienė, Research, Russia, Siberia, Slavs, Villages, Vilna Ghetto, Writing
True story: A researcher at the archives at Kent State University stumbles on the transcript of an interview with her grandmother. This is what happened to me in 2001, when I made the trip from Chicago to Kent, Ohio to look at two boxes of uncatalogued Šimaitė papers. Inside one of the cartons was a [...]
15 Mar 2010 at 08:46
Julija Šukys
Academia, Funding, Grad School, Humanities, Linda Hutcheon, Research, University of Toronto, Writing
I defended my PhD thesis at the University of Toronto in August of 2001, under the supervision of a renowned literary scholar and theorist. Linda Hutcheon has written about a dozen books, scores of articles, is respected by her peers, adored by students, and is one of the best examples of a successful writer-teacher you [...]
12 Mar 2010 at 07:50
Julija Šukys
Life-blood, Life-writing, Maggie Nelson, Marketing, Poetry, Writing
Maggie Nelson, Jane: A Murder. Soft Skull Press, 2005. I read Maggie Nelson’s book after a Temple University professor recommended it to me as an example of writing that, like my own, was hybrid in form. Jane tells about the author’s search for traces of her aunt who was brutally raped then killed in the [...]
10 Mar 2010 at 08:53
Julija Šukys
Algeria, Anne Carson, Anthropology, Archives, Assia Djebar, Biography, Creative Nonfiction, Exile, Journeys, Ona Šimaitė, Ona Šukienė, Paris, Research, Russia, Siberia, Virginia Woolf, Writer's block
A writer friend of mine asked me recently how I keep going when things aren’t going well, and what I do when I become blocked. The most useful thing I do when I feel empty is read. I turn to authors whose work I want to emulate: Virginia Woolf, Anne Carson, Assia Djebar, Joan Didion, [...]
