OLGA LIVSHIN

Welcome

I am a writer who helps others tell their stories. My family is from Odesa, Ukraine and Moscow, Russia, and I am from berries and tea and separation.

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I love teaching rising seniors the college essay. As people use AI, many essays sound the same. The college essay is an opportunity to capture a child's unique voice. It's fun for me to help them discover themselves through discussions and writing on their values, interests, and quirks. My college essay students have gone on to Bard, Lincoln University, and beyond. I am offering a small-group, 2-week college essay workshop this July, 2026. To register yours, please reach out by email at olga@olgalivshin.com or phone at 267-289-2457. 

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I teach children and teens creative writing over Zoom. All lessons are one-on-one, and the emphasis is on helping the individual young person tap into their voice. We read and imitate international and diverse literature along with Anglo-American classics of children's literature. 

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I offer poets coaching and manuscript critiques with insight, honesty, and heart. My advice is informed by my poetry, which is published in Poetry, AGNI, the Southern Review, and Calyx.  I have organized, moderated, and spoken on a number of AWP conference panels about poetic takes on immigration and Ukraine, on translation and other matters.

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I have earned fellowships to the Yetzirah Poetry Conference, the Porches Residency, and Prospect Street Writers House. I have been a resident at VCCA and the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow. 

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I spearheaded the translation of Ukrainian poet Lyudmyla Khersonska's war diary in poems, Today Is a Different War, translated with Lev Fridman, Andrew Janco, and Maya Chhabra and published by Arrowsmith Press.

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My poetry collection A Life Replaced  (Poets & Traitors, 2019) braids together poems on immigration in America with translations from Anna Akhmatova and the immigrant poet  Vladimir Gandelsman. Many poems are responses to these two voices; some are stand-alone works. The foreword is by Ilya Kaminsky. You can read reviews in the Los Angeles Review of Books and Reading in Translation.

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And to stay in touch, please feel free to subscribe to my newsletter.

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Welcome, and enjoy your stay!