Blog
Project Mirror Preview
The lobby of Regnum Carya becomes literary territory on August 26th. I’ll be talking about Project Mirror, the book that’s been consuming my thoughts since July. If you’ve been following the blog posts, you know this story emerged from my nail salon chair six weeks ago. A client asked for
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,
From Page to Screen: An Unexpected Turn
ECG just confirmed something I didn’t anticipate: excerpts from Polished Edges and Temporary Access are being considered for screen adaptation. December 2025, London. “Film & Literature: Shorts Review” session as part of ECG Film Festival 2026 programming cycle. My short story collections will be reviewed alongside work from other writers
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,
Writing About Literary Exchange
I just finished a residency through Literature Across Frontiers on the Culture Reset platform. Task: produce reflective essay on literary exchange, collaborate with peers on short translations. Wrote the essay in English. Prepared dedicated Russian version, not translation, adaptation. Different rhetorical traditions, different assumptions about what “literary exchange” means. The
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
