Katiaesque

  • My Annual Thank You To Ms. Universe

    Last year, freshly signed with Ms. Awesome Agent, awash in monumental gratitude, I posted this: https://katiaraina.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/a-year-in-my-writing-life-things-i-am-thankful-for/ Today, I would like to offer up yet another thank you letter to Dear Universe. Dear Ms. Beautiful Universe, Thank you for: 1. the fall  2. my blog 🙂 3. my agent, still by my side — still armed with…

    Katia Raina

  • One year. Five books to celebrate.

    In 2009, 47 million new websites sprouted up on the Internet: http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/01/22/internet-2009-in-numbers/ I couldn’t find the statistics on new blogs (which I thought was a shame), but I am sure the number of those is just as staggering. I was one of them, exactly a year ago. According to this NYT article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/fashion/07blogs.html, the majority of bloggers…

    Katia Raina

  • All The Raindrops In The Sea, or A Thousand Winding Pathways

    When I was 18 or 19 years old, I wrote a poem about wanting to do everything, wanting to possess the Universe. I asked, back then — I really, desperately wanted to know — “how long will it take me/ to count all the raindrops in the sea?”  Funny how it has become a theme of my life. Everyone…

    Katia Raina

  • Craziness!!!

    Hi my faithful friends, readers and followers! I think you should know what my life is right now — it’s a hurricane!!! There is a chance that maybe maybe maybe I can make this other story work . . . (as soon as my agent says she likes it — if she DOES, I’ll tell…

    Katia Raina

  • Will I Reach The Top of the Mountain?

    I have been a bit behind “schedule” blogging in the past few weeks. My excuse is a good one: I recently got back from Italy and France. We try to go there at least every other year. We stay with my husband’s very big, very varied and very lovely family.  THREE WEEKS OF MAGIC Summing it all up seems impossible, but…

    Katia Raina

  • My Name Isn’t Kate Anymore

    In high school I called myself Kate. It sounded so much more American that way. I was a skinny, needy, long-haired, sad and self-absorbed teenager in a barely-there skirt, vacationing in Miami, Florida, on a spring break, where I met a guy who would change the course of my life. I  (Kate), traveled with my grandmother, my…

    Katia Raina

  • Dear Mama,

     You formed me Inside you. And then, you wore frayed flowered house-dresses For a year Lugged basins full of blankets Dirty with my pee, In a small city you hated You carried my stroller up to the fifth floor, Panting In cold 1978 That’s got to be worth something,   You formed me, That’s got…

    Katia Raina

  • 2010: an old-fashioned Russian year

    Whenever you people think of Russia, you probably conjure up images of fur-coats, snow mounds and circus bears wearing warm floppy hats . . . 🙂 In reality, Russia does have other seasons, you know 🙂 I would even argue that the autumn, the summer, and especially the spring stand out even brighter, even more sharply defined, in contrast to the long, snowy winter.  …

    Katia Raina

  • Awake and Dreaming

    My manuscript is out of my hands. Now, according to the popular wisdom, I must live my life and be happy and NOT wait, not dream, not hope. The watched pot doesn’t boil. So true. Yet the thoughts, the questions creep in, sometimes in the middle of the day, sometimes first thing in the morning. What…

    Katia Raina

  • Back to School

    Today, I found myself back in college. All I can say is, OMG. Well, okay, being a literature major, I’m going to have to do a little better than that. 🙂 I’ve done it all before – searching for a parking spot under the palm trees of the green University of Miami campus; jaywalking across the…

    Katia Raina