Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 6h

Just realized that, in Russian, the description "торт Павлова" [cake Pavlova] actually scans like "a cake belonging to a guy named Pavlov." To ensure the English-centered reading, one probably needs to add an accent mark "торт Павло́ва" or something like that

Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 1d

Front and back cover of my new story collection, coming out November (launch on the 6th at Voce Books, Birmingham 7pm). Floodgate Press have done such a great job!

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 2d

My lovely publisher at @fabulistmag.bsky.social recently boosted this story I wrote about an overwhelmed android, who can't stop composing her log notes. She is a career!

fabulistmagazine.com/in-our-heart...

#fabulistfiction #fabulism #flashfiction #shortstory

The Fabulist
Picture of Chinese calligraphy
Story title: In Our Hearts Risen

Like most androids of her generation, Annie-A was petite and sturdy-looking. She tried to make herself useful and cleaned off specks of dust from the couch in my office and fluffed the cushions. Her only complaint was tiredness: every week, Mondays, at seven p.m., she came in to tell me how tired she was.

The technicians could find nothing wrong with her build. Her hormone levels were normal, her core DNA encoded with the basic programming had shown no signs of deterioration, her neural pathways were robust and continued to develop at a normal rate.

They diagnosed her with a mild robotic depressive disorder and sent her to me.

I usually started by asking about her week, but Annie-A found the question difficult to approach. She worried the cushions, then leaned back and closed her eyes: she needed a little time to rest, she said.

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Heather Paterson @heatherpaterson.co.uk · 3d

🌈 Today is #NationalComingOutDay!

Whether you’re out, not out, questioning, or can’t share your truth safely, you’re valid, seen, loved and part of community regardless of how visible you are.

Coming out is personal. Be proud of who you are, in whatever way feels right for you. ❤️

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Heather Paterson @heatherpaterson.co.uk · 3d

Trans friends - have your say and help shape Trans+ History Week 🏳️‍⚧️

@transhistoryweek.com @wearequeeraf.com

Trans+ History Week @transhistoryweek.com · 6d

Help shape Trans+ History Week!

Please complete our annual story survey and have your say on what kinds of stories we tell next year with @wearequeeraf.com

Shape Trans+ History Week - Have Your Say

What kinds of stories, history and communities should we focus on next year?

erv8ks078ir.typeform.com

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Center for the Art of Translation @catranslation.org · 4d

Bay Area! Join us and @litquake.org on Oct. 17 @ 6:30 pm at CounterPulse for a listening party debuting 3 audio lit in translation adaptations.This guided event features Camilo Garzón and special guests, Noelle de la Paz, Monica Cure, and Amanda Nazareno. RSVP: www.catranslation.org/event/litqua...

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Punctured Lines @puncturedlines.bsky.social · 4d

With Mirgul Kali, Yuliya Ilchuk, Elana Gomel @mor1233.bsky.social, Evgeniya Dame, Maggie Levantovskaya, Dmitri Manin @dmanin.bsky.social, Margarita Meklina, Yuliya Patsay, @sashavasilyuk.bsky.social, and Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social
Full event description: puncturedlines.com/2025/10/09/o...

Owning Fear, Reaching for Freedom: Post-Soviet Writers + Translators Speak Out

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…

puncturedlines.com

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Punctured Lines @puncturedlines.bsky.social · 4d

San Francisco Bay Area: We’re a group of immigrant writers and translators born in the former USSR, here to push back against the growing threat to freedom of expression. Come to our Lit Crawl event at Ruth’s Table (3160 21st Street) on October 25, 2025, 5 pm.
@litquake.org #BayArea

A flyer displaying ten author's photos alongside three quarters perimeter. In the center left, in black, title of the event:
OWNING FEAR, REACHING FOR FREEDOM: POST-SOVIET WRITERS AND TRANSLATORS SPEAK OUT
on the right, in red: LIT CRAWL SAN FRANCISCO
Below, in Blue:
Sat OCTOBER 25TH 5-6 PM
AT RUTH'S TABLE
2160 21st Street
Sponsored by California Humanities and Ruth's Table

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 6d

I hope to see many of you at our Lit Crawl event on October 25, 2025. For SF Writers Workshop, our theme this year is "We've Got Notes for You!" Five of our current and former regulars will read their writing and tell us how workshop feedback has informed their revision process.
#BookSky #SFevents

An image of a blackboard with a stack of yellow pencils in the foreground. Text in yellow and white reads:
San Francisco Writers Workshop Presents
Five writers read their stories and share the feedback that made them great.
Then YOU get to critique a juicy story, Live!
Below:
Author's portraits with signatures:
Beverly Parayno
Peng Ngin
Tim Sullivan
Jo Beckett-King
Tony Tepper

Below: We've Got Notes for You!
October 25, 2025
Lit Crawl, Phase II, 6:30 pm
Noisebridge, 272 Capp Street

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 5d

Looking forward to this!

Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Dmitri Manin @dmanin.bsky.social · 5d

San Francisco people, come hear us!

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Katherine E. Young @katherineeyoung.bsky.social · 6d

Fabulous small museum that gives a good home to local poets--please support them if you can!

MoCo Underground Writers Showcase [Julia Tagliere] @mocounderground.bsky.social · 6d

Hey, friends, you know how I love my little local Sandy Spring Museum, where I’ve hosted the Writers Showcase since 2019? They’re doing a big Founder Day fundraiser today; it’d mean so much to me if you’d check it out: givebutter.com/SSMFoundersD...
Every little bit helps, thank you! Mwah! ❤️🙏🏻🥳🌻

Sandy Spring Museum - Founders' Day of Giving

Celebrate the founding of Sandy Spring Museum. Make your gift today!

givebutter.com

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 6d

I hope to see many of you at our Lit Crawl event on October 25, 2025. For SF Writers Workshop, our theme this year is "We've Got Notes for You!" Five of our current and former regulars will read their writing and tell us how workshop feedback has informed their revision process.
#BookSky #SFevents

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Bradley Gorski @bgorski.bsky.social · 8d

I got to talk with Maria Lipman about my book last week. Check it out!

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 9d

Maria Lipman interviews Bradley A. Gorski (@bgorski.bsky.social) for @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social: "Cultural Capitalism: Literature and the Market After Socialism" ( #bookhistory, #skystorians) newbooksnetwork.com/cultural-cap...

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 7d

it's been a minute since i've sent/published new poems anywhere— hope you like this one, written for the At What Cost catalog's Style issue, curated by Jessica Scicchitano

style.atwhatcost.me#alina-pleskova

ALINA PLESKOVA
FOR CONSIDERATION
I aspire to compete in the international space-out competition
which I've unwittingly trained for all this time-
tenderized by blush-hued mushrooms, elderly metalheads,
the time Rachel said the sky over the highway looked like a wrinkled sheet & Dylan said
I was just about to say that, & I didn't take a photo
because I wanted to recall it only so
My practice is rooted in wondering how the same ingenious species that invented concertos, disco balls,
& broccoli - all seemingly for the hell of it - can't endeavor to dismantle the despotic state apparatus threatening its joy & survival, or at least take cues from the birds who repurpose anti-bird spikes for nest-building
My work doesn't interrogate the tension between tempering a certain shame to make one's art more lucrative & knowing your art makes

your friends cringe
It might ask instead:
Why lower the rarified to regular volume?
Why refashion the sacred into a vibeless ornament?
A mote on the stylus of my consciousness messes with the pickup

O accolade-patterned bio-
O frosted plaque of competency-

I've sensed an emptiness at the back o
f your gaze

How else do we intend to carry out
our absurd impermanence?

I endeavor to become lichen,
or the lone mail carrier for one of those seaside towns
built into cliffs-
toned calf muscles
gleaming in my wake

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 7d

So true. US-based fiction of Russia is very much about US-based problems, and that Russian stereotypes serve as a convenient foil.

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 7d

Ugh! He's a big deal novelist too, argh

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 7d

fantasies about Russia and Russians occupy such a weird place in US-based fiction. so weird.

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 7d

reading a popular novel by an american writer, where a character is a russian emigre. She's so cold! Her grown daughters are so traumatized by her coldness! Halfway thru the story her daughters are, like, "oh, we're russian too!" and so they down vodka shots and try to have a heart-to-heart. omg

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 9d

I will find my genie.

Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Agatha Chocolats @agathachocolats.bsky.social · 11d

In six words or fewer, write a story about this photo.
#sixwordstory #WritingCommunity

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 9d

Inspiring

Nathan Anderson/Submersible Press @njapoetry.bsky.social · 9d

A little piece I wrote about Submersible Press.

rob mclennan @robmclennan.bsky.social · 9d

newly posted at @periodicities.bsky.social : Nathan Anderson : Submersible Press / @njapoetry.bsky.social ;
periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2025/10/nath...

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Reposted by Olga Zilberbourg

Des @mkcanuck.bsky.social · 13d

@ttbrader.bsky.social @barbaramcveigh.bsky.social @mrmuleman.bsky.social

Oh good lord…it’s a 12 pack this year people…

I love the original 24 (25!) so still mulling this over…🧐

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 11d

If I were to start a workshop for ESL fiction writers, one thing none of the group members would be allowed to say in critique is, "But English-language readers won't understand that!"

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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 13d

Absolutely fascinating work -- wow, this is all so interesting, thank you!

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