Welcome
I am a writer who helps others tell their stories. My family is from Odessa and Moscow, and I am from berries and tea and poetry.
NEW! At home with child and quarantine? Fret not. Professional, fun, and engaging English lessons are now available online, through ZOOM. I also coordinate online book clubs for kids and teens. Private and semi-private lessons are available.
My book A Life Replaced (Poets & Traitors, 2019) braids together poems on immigration in America with translations from Anna Akhmatova and our contemporary Vladimir Gandelsman, winner of Russia's highest award for poetry, the Moscow Reckoning. Many poems are responses to these two voices; some are stand-alone works.
In his foreword to the book, Ilya Kaminsky writes: This is a book that lays all its cards on the table. We see poetic influences, yes. We see conversations, yes. We see various voices as they enter Livshin’s life. But we also see the music of play, both textual and mundane, play that allows others to enter and tango and transform. Feel free to read a few poems from the book here.
These are trying times. I co-organize the reading series on immigration called "From Across the Waters" with Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach. For more information about "From Across the Waters," please feel free to write me at olga@olgalivshin.com.
And to stay in touch, please feel free to subscribe to my newsletter.
Welcome, and enjoy your stay!
Book tour (postponed)
Reading with Jenna Lê and Ahmad Almallah, Big Blue Marble Bookstore, 551 Carpenter Ln, Philadelphia
Reading & discussion at Brandeis University
Bilingual Reading & Discussion with Vladimir Gandelsman at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, 420 W 118th St, New York
Reading & Conversation with Eleonor Gilburd (University of Chicago), as part of a CEERES of Voices, Seminary Co-op Bookstore, 5751 S Woodlawn Ave, Chicago
Sunday, May 17, DC-ALT presentation, 2PM, Washington, DC, location TBA
Wednesday, May 27, with Larissa Shmailo, Michelle Whittaker, and Henry Gray at Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Shop, 141 Front St, Brooklyn
To find out more, come follow me on Twitter @olgalivshin or Facebook @alifereplaced.