Last night’s reading at Waterstones Bishopsgate was everything I hoped it would be—and more intimate than I expected. When you organize an event yourself, there’s always that moment of uncertainty: will anyone show up? Will the conversation flow? Will the words I’ve labored over resonate when spoken aloud?
The setting couldn’t have been more perfect. Waterstones Bishopsgate, with its literary atmosphere and proximity to Liverpool Street, created exactly the kind of space where experimental fiction can breathe. Since founding Stories & Surfaces: Contemporary Literature London, I’ve been working to build a community where writers and readers can engage with challenging contemporary work, and this reading felt like a natural evolution from my Moscow debut with “Omnichannel Hearts” last year.
I read from the storm sequence where the Maldivian retreat becomes a pressure cooker—those moments when my nail artist protagonist realizes she’s trapped not just by weather, but by the increasingly desperate performances of influencers whose carefully constructed facades begin cracking. There’s something particularly vulnerable about reading scenes where characters confront the gap between their online personas and their isolated reality, especially when your audience understands that tension intimately.
The discussion afterward proved particularly engaging. Questions about writing across cultures felt especially relevant given London’s international literary community. Someone asked about the creative process behind blending my nail artistry work with fiction writing—how working with London’s cultural elite informed the novel’s exploration of authenticity versus performance.
The Q&A revealed genuine curiosity about the “Phoenix Program” subplot and how digital manipulation works in practice. It’s encouraging to find readers willing to engage with the ethical complexities of social media influence and the question of what remains “behind the scenes” of polished online presentations.
What struck me most was the quality of engagement rather than quantity. Sometimes the most meaningful literary conversations happen in smaller, more focused groups where every voice can be heard.
Posted from London, where the echo of last night’s discussion still lingers in the best possible way.
— Writer Julia Zolotova
