Ukraine

Garrard Conley |Assistant Professor of Creative Writing   Garrard Conley (Ukraine 2007-10) has been awarded a prestigious MacDowell Fellowship that he will engage in during two weeks in late September 2023. Adding his name to a list that includes one of his literary heroes, James Baldwin, Conley’s name can now be found among illustrious artists such as Willa Cather, Leonard Bernstein, and Nell Painter, all of whom are past recipients. Conley expressed his shock and gratitude at becoming a MacDowell Fellowship recipient saying, “I was so thrilled that I almost didn’t even have a reaction. I didn’t know what to do.” He started applying for this fellowship when he was 21 and had been applying every eligible year since “thinking, there’s no way I’ll ever get in, but I’m just going to do it.” The MacDowell Fellowship was established in 1907 by Marian and Edward MacDowell and was initially funded . . .

The War Came to Us by Christopher Miller (Ukraine 2010-12) Bloomsbury Continuum Publisher 400 pages July 2023 $9.99 (Kindle) $28.00 (Hardcover) pre-order, audiobook • A breathtaking exploration of Ukraine’s past, present, and future, and a heartbreaking account of the war against Russia, written by the leading journalist of the conflict, former PCV Christopher Miller (Ukraine 2010-12). When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine just before dawn on 24 February 2022, it marked his latest and most overt attempt to brutally conquer the country, and reshaped the world order. Christopher Miller, the Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times and the foremost journalist covering the country, was there on the ground when the first Russian missiles struck and troops stormed over the border. But the seeds of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the West were sown more than a decade earlier. This is the definitive, inside story of its . . .

Based in the Scottish Highlands Sherry Morris is from a small town in Missouri, but hasn’t let that stop her. She spent the summer of her 18th birthday traveling up the coast of France with a circus and after graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a teaching degree,  joined the Peace Corps. She served two years in Ukraine (1993-95) and spent a further year in Poland before moving to London in 2000. In February 2017 she moved to a farm in the Scottish Highlands where she lives happily ever after. Her work has appeared online with Horror Scribes and Gemini magazine, in print with Molotov Cocktail and the Bath Flash anthology To Carry Her Home. It has also been performed with Liars’ League London and The Space theatre in east London. A story she wrote about her Peace Corps experience — “Soul Mates” appears in A Small Key Opens Big Doors: Vol 3 — The Heart of Eurasia. She . . .

  by Samuel Gerard (Ukraine 2018–20) (pen name of Samuel Gerard Luebbers)   Having had the chance to reflect on my Peace Corps experiences, and knowing how fickle memory can be, I felt the necessity to write them down. What became of this project was a meandering epistolary, one which I both mentally dedicated and fictionally addressed to an old friend, Michelle. We met a lifetime ago on the roof of my college freshmen dorm. We shared a long conversation then, and several others afterwards. We always imagined, to ourselves, that we would be together. I promised her that when I was ready to commit to someone, it would be her. Life has a way of getting in the way, though. I learned this alongside college’s so many other lessons. In ultimate testament to life’s effect on well-laid plans, soon after Michelle and I began dating, I received my invitation to . . .