Essays
A selection of published work
-ETTE REVIEW
The Casino Tapes
The spheres of ballet rarely intersect with this netherworld of erotic dance but, in a rare convergence, a pretty blonde who says she was a circus contortionist until she injured her back, comes up for an afternoon ballet class I teach, and since I don’t charge her for the lesson, invites me for a drink on the terrace, where I tell her I’ve been inside the nightclub only once, to cap off a dancer’s birthday, when a doorman with a crush on the birthday boy invited our party in for free.
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THE RUPTURE (also published in BERFROIS)
Stench of the Reptile
"Poor baby," you'd once said, pulling a scarf over your nostrils, offering consolation on one of the multiple occasions when she'd been whining about perpetual bad luck, another dude who'd discarded her, another scam that hadn't worked out, debts and fines she couldn't pay. Your friends laughed behind her back, calling her a psycho, a narcissist, a pathetic old hag.
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LOST BALLOON (included in the anthologies: Short, Vigorous Roots, OOLIGAN PRESS 2022; Scat to be Poo, TRUTHER PRESS 2021)
The Ravine
They’d christened me “Evgenia” in a ceremony at Saints Vladimir and Olga Cathedral, but always addressed me by the diminutive “Genia,” with the inflection that led people to assume they were mispronouncing the far more common “Jeannie.” My schoolteacher called me that in class, which made me feel pleasantly ordinary. She also suggested my parents stop speaking Ukrainian at home, warning them of the foreign accent I’d acquire. Never. My mother bristled. We lost everything else.
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PETRO 22 (also published in FARSICKNESS JOURNAL)
Mosquito
When Winnipeg’s infernal winter finally eases into spring; and the house-high snow dunes shrink into gray hillocks, the last patch of dirt-encrusted ice melts into a slowly evaporating puddle, and the mercury continues its climb; the city transforms into a different kind of hellhole: a pseudo-tropical purgatory where sunstroke can kill you, if the insects don’t devour you first.
THE /tƐmz/ REVIEW (also published in SUGARSUGARSALT MAGAZINE)
Frozen
My father’s new wife defrosted the freezer. Relics melted, recollection dissolved. Pictures, china, souvenirs disappeared. A large painting of my ballerina mother, posed with arms curved gracefully above her, was exiled to the cobwebbed storage space under the basement stairs.
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ATTICUS REVIEW
Winter Rituals
My mother prepared twelve meatless dishes, including vushka, mushroom-filled dumplings afloat in blood-red borscht; an entire carp in aspic; and honeyed kutia made of wheat, walnuts, and poppy seed that always stuck between everyone’s teeth. Our feast’s rituals were adapted from ancient pagan beliefs once dedicated to fertility, winter solstice, and ancestral spirits.
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BENDING GENRES (also published in BERFROIS and included in The Bending Genres Anthology 2018 – 2019)
Ten Questions I Asked After Seeing Marathon Man at the Movies
1.) Did you see me in the foyer, buying candy at the refreshment stand?
2.) Did you watch me flirting with the boy behind the counter when he tallied up my coins?
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UNDER THE SUN (“Notable Essay” in The Best American Essays 2019, also published in BERFROIS)
Slaves of Dance
The architect, undeterred by the Poltva River running inconveniently through the site, devised a solid concrete base to stabilize his construction and banished the stream to a subterranean tunnel. Henceforth, the Poltva coursed beneath the Grand Opera House, oblivious to the inaugural gala performance, ignorant of the dramas and comedies that played above, unconcerned by the ravages and holocausts of the unfolding century …
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SONORA REVIEW
Memento
My mother’s little treasure lay hidden in a blue, faux leather jewelry box, just large enough to have once held a ring or, perhaps, a pair of earrings. I found it nestled in a corner of her dresser drawer, peeled away its tissue paper swaddling, and exposed the desiccated vestige of my own umbilical cord.
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VESTAL REVIEW
(LWÓW) (LEMBERG) (LVIV)
The Russian ballet director, People’s Artist of Ukraine, embraced me at the stage door like a prodigal daughter. He led me into a labyrinth of corridors, up flights of stairs, through heavy doors, into the cool darkness of the empty stage.
The footlights went on, and the auditorium’s chandelier began to glow, revealing gilded tiers of vacant, red plush seats.
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SOLSTICE LITERARY MAGAZINE
Wounds and Secretions
Words curved and swayed as they circled and embraced memories, then swiveled and slid past a pothole or jumped over an unnamed chasm; voices surging and waning like the melody of a Viennese waltz from a popular operetta of their youth, my parents’ personal history was a 3/4 time Freudian talking cure without couch or therapist, distinguished by a complete absence of scrutiny or analysis.
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BERFROIS
Sex Studies
At night, the sperm slithers across my parents’ bed sheets like silverfish, up my mummy’s thighs, into her pee-pee, sniffing out eggs.
It’s incredible that I could have squeezed out through such a tiny opening.
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ASSAY: A JOURNAL OF NONFICTION STUDIES
My NonfictioNOW 2017 (A dispatch from Iceland and an interview with Wayne Koestenbaum)
I lost and regained my balance near a volcanic crevasse, came close to being scalded by escaping steam and, overwhelmed by a fish-heavy dinner buffet, mistook a chunk of whale blubber for cheddar.