Blog
Beautiful Nightmares, Inc.
Two months inside Project Mirror and I have to take regular walks through Hyde Park just to remember what unfiltered reality looks like. The corporate structure behind my fictional beauty-tech empire is becoming terrifyingly plausible. I’m calling them Aesthetic Dynamics Corp – chose the name for its bland corporate poetry,
Beyond the Page
Visited Iris Colomb’s exhibition at the National Poetry Library today. Her approach to poetry as multimedia experience feels completely fresh. The ‘Try destruction!’ installation caught my attention immediately. A carefully constructed pyramid of crumpled paper balls where Colomb had systematically fragmented existing texts, transforming written words into sculptural form. The
Debugging Beauty
Three weeks deep into Project Mirror research and reality keeps making my dystopian fiction look tame. My protagonist is shaping up as a tech support specialist for people’s faces. When someone’s lip enhancement algorithm crashes mid-Zoom call, she fixes it. When their eye color update conflicts with skin tone optimization,
When Your Mirror Needs an Update
Yesterday a client asked for ‘influencer hands.’ Not the manicure – she wanted surgery to match some AI-generated beauty standard from TikTok. Her actual hand shape wasn’t good enough anymore. That conversation gave me my next book idea. I’ve been sketching this world where beauty isn’t just aspirational – it’s
From Concept to Publication: My impressions
Sometimes the best way to test whether your stories have actual pulse is to watch faces while you tell them. Last night I found myself in Principal Tower’s cinema room, surrounded by the kind of glass and steel that makes you feel simultaneously insignificant and invincible, talking about the messy,
Critical Recognition
Sometimes the most meaningful validation comes from unexpected quarters. This week, I discovered that Eastern Empire had been the subject of a comprehensive critical analysis in Arts & Culture UK, penned by respected critic and reviewer Yulia Tulegenova. Reading Tulegenova’s piece felt like watching someone carefully dissect the architectural blueprints
Tomorrow Night: Two Books, One Journey
Tomorrow at 7 PM, I’m sitting down with anyone curious about how stories actually get made. Twelve months ago, I stood in front of fifteen people in Moscow, sharing Omnichannel Hearts in Russian and wondering if these narratives would resonate beyond that room. Now Eastern Empire and Omnichannel Hearts carry
Language, Borders, and the Alchemy of Translation
Yesterday evening at Goethe-Institut’s library felt like stepping into a literary time capsule. The discussion around Iris Wolff’s Blurred wasn’t just another book launch — it was a masterclass in how stories cross borders, both geographical and linguistic. Watching Wolff speak about her Transylvanian childhood while Ruth Martin explained her
Nara’s Defiant Eyes at the Hayward
Yesterday’s visit to Yoshitomo Nara’s retrospective at the Hayward Gallery left me contemplating the intersection of childhood consciousness and artistic resistance—themes surprisingly relevant to contemporary storytelling. Nara’s wide-eyed, large-headed figures possess an unsettling directness that reminded me of writing character psychology. These aren’t cute children; they’re complex beings carrying both
