BRATTLEBORO — On Friday, April 8, at 5 p.m., the Brattleboro Literary Fest's monthly online Literary Cocktail Hour will feature Ukrainian American poet Dzvinia Orlowsky, Ukrainian American writer Askold Melnyczuk, and translator of Ukrainian, Ali Kinsella.
They will be reading their work and discussing the effects of the war and the power of translation, as well as ways to support Ukraine's writers.
Suzanne Nossel, director of PEN America, recently said in a news release that “Ukraine's hard-won democratic and human rights gains and its very independence as a nation risk obliteration as a result of Russia's reckless and dangerous aggression.”
Askold Melnyczuk's book of stories, The Man Who Would Not Bow, was published in October 2021. He has published four novels that have variously been named a New York Times Notable, a Los Angeles Times Best Books of the Year selection, and an Editor's Choice by the American Library Association's Booklist.
He is also co-editor of From Three Worlds, an anthology of Ukrainian writers. His published translations include work by Oksana Zabuzhko, Marjana Savka, Bohdan Boychuk, and Ivan Drach. Melnyczuk is the founding editor of Agni and the founding editor of Arrowsmith Press.
He has taught at Boston University, Harvard, Bennington College, and currently teaches at UMass Boston.
Dzvinia Orlowsky is an award-winning poet, translator, and a founding editor of Four Way Books. She is the author of six poetry collections published by Carnegie Mellon University Press.
Orlowsky is a founding faculty member of the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing of Pine Manor College and the founder and director of “Night Riffs: A Solstice Literary Magazine Reading and Music Series.” She teaches at Providence College.
Ali Kinsella has been translating from Ukrainian for eight years. Her published works include essays, poetry, monographs, and subtitles to various films. Recently, she published the poetry collection Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow by Natalka Bilotserkivets with Dzvinia Orlowsky.
Kinsella holds a master's from Columbia University, where she wrote a thesis on the intersection of feminism and nationalism in small states. A former Peace Corps volunteer, she lived in Ukraine for nearly five years. She is currently in Chicago, where she also sometimes works as a baker.
Register for the free event at bit.ly/LitCocktail19.
The Literary Festival encourages everyone who is able to donate in support of Ukrainian writers at PEN America, bit.ly/658-ukraine, and mark donations for “Ukrainian Writer Relief.”
To support transportation and transition for people being forced to flee the country, the Global Empowerment Mission has been on the ground in Ukraine since the second day of the Russian invasion. To give online, visit bit.ly/658-GEM.