Now in Paperback

I’m excited to announce that Your Presence Is Mandatory comes out in paperback on December 16! With a lovely new look, I hope you pre-order one today. It would make the perfect snowy gift for the holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah or even Soviet New Year’s). Strong pre-orders tell bookstores to stock Your Presence Is Mandatory, which will allow me to keep up this authoring gig a little longer.

This cover was inspired by the French edition of my novel. My team at Bloomsbury loved the snowy design of the French so much that they decided to adapt it for the paperback. I hope the new look will help get it into the hands of readers who love historical fiction, cozy winter reads or just need more blue books for their bookshelf.

To celebrate the launch, I’m having a reading party on December 16 where I’ll share the stage with a few of my close author friends: Olga Zilberbourg, Lee Kravetz, Heather Grzych, Jacqueline Doyle and Molly Antopol. I’m doing a couple of other little events, but not going all out as I’ve done over 50 events over the past 1.5 years since the book came out.

What I’m Reading

Fiction: In The Undead by Svetlana Satchkova, Maya is a debut Russian film director making a zombie flick where Lenin comes back to life, when suddenly… what she fears isn’t what gets her. It’s a dark and funny reflection of art in an era of repression. I’m interviewing Svetlana for Electric Lit, so look out for that in January.

Nonfiction: Motherland by Julia Ioffe is narrative nonfiction on the history of women and feminism of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Finalist for the National Book Award.

On my nightstand: Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan about a caretaking relationship blooming in a flooded future San Francisco. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union, edited & translated by Sasha Senderovich and Harriet Murav.

Happy Thanksgiving to you! I’m grateful to any of you who read my newsletter or my book. Thank you!

xx Sasha

Amazing night at Sami Rohr Ceremony

Last month, I traveled to New York to receive the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. The ceremony was held at a stunning venue and I met the three Rohr children who instituted this prize in honor of their father, the famous Rabbi David Wolpe, the three finalists, and a lot of supporters of Jewish literature.

I was quite nervous about my speech, but it helped to have my husband and a few of my girlfriends in the audience. Apparently my husband teared up while I spoke, which was only the second time he’d ever teared up (the first was when he saw our first-born). If you’re curious, you can watch the speech and the ceremony here.

Sasha Vasilyuk accepts the award from George Rohr

I’m beyond grateful for this once-in-a-lifetime experience and the generosity of the Rohr family!

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What I’m Reading

Fiction: Boy from the North Country by Sam Sussman is an autofictional novel about a son who returns to care for his dying mother and discovers the story of her turbulent romance with Bob Dylan, whose son he may or may not be. I met Sam at my Sami Rohr event in New York and highly recommend you pick up this novel.

Nonfiction: Chesnok by Polina Chesnakova is a gorgeous new cookbook featuring perfected recipes from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

On my nightstand: Kaplan’s Plot by Jason Diamond about a Jewish-Ukrainian grandfather/Chicago gangster, Tell Me Yours I’ll Tell You Mine by Kristina Ten is a short story collection perfect for the spooky season.

I hope you’re enjoying the Fall season, wherever you may be.

xx Sasha

Holy moly! I won California Book Award & Sami Rohr Prize

I’m beyond excited to announce that I’m the winner of not just one, but two incredibly prestigious awards. How that happened I honestly don’t know. I’m not being facetious. There are certain things that I expected from publishing my novel, some of which happened and some of which didn’t. But these two awards weren’t something I expected. Which makes it all the more rewarding.

First off, Your Presence Is Mandatory won the California Book Award for First Fiction! Given that this book takes place very far from California and the huge number of amazing books that come out from California authors, I was really surprised and hugely honored. This is the 94th year of the awards and is organized by the Commonwealth Club. The winner for Fiction category (not first, but general) is Percival Everett for James, with the silver medal going to Rachel Kushner for Creation Lake, both tremendous novels.

Please join me for the virtual ceremony on Monday, June 23 6-7pm PST.

On the same week, I found out that I’m the winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature! This annual prize, given on alternate years to fiction and nonfiction works, came as an even bigger shock because there is no nomination process for this award, so I didn’t even know I was in consideration. The ceremony was supposed to be in Jerusalem in early July, but obviously everything got rearranged, so now the ceremony will take place in New York on September 3 (more details to come).

I’m tremendously grateful to judges - all deep lovers of books - for appreciating and recognizing what I tried to do with my book. I feel like it gave Your Presence added literary legitimacy and I hope this recognition will lead to more readers discovering this book.

What I’m Reading

Fiction: Endling by Maria Reva is a novel I’ve long looked forward to reading. It’s an absurdist story of three Ukrainian women, a snail, and a truck full of foreign bachelors. Reva was working on it before the full-scale invasion began and it altered the book in incredibly interesting ways. Don’t miss it.

Nonfiction: Our Dear Friends in Moscow by Andrei Soldatov & Irina Borogan, a couple of exiled Russian journalists who track how their friends fell into working for Putin propaganda machine.

On my nightstand: The Night Sparrow by Shelly Sanders (we’re doing an event together in SF on July 17) about a female sniper in the Red Army.

I hope you’re taking occasional breaks from the world’s craziness. My heart goes out to friends & their loved ones in Ukraine, Israel and Iran.

Reflections on Publishing & Ukraine on Book's 1st Birthday

I woke up today ready to celebrate the 1st birthday of my book, but when I checked the news, I saw that while I slept, there was a horrible Russian bombardment of Ukraine. And it just reminded me of how, when I began writing the book in 2017, then when I found a publisher in 2022, and then when my book came out in 2024, each time I kept hoping that peace was near… And yet, here we are.

Sorry to be a downer, but I think it’s easy to look away from a war that’s far away and that’s been going on for so long. The problem is that it won’t disappear just because we don’t look.

And now, to the original, less somber part of my post:

Your Presence Is Mandatory came out in April 2024 and as I reflect on the past year, I realize how much it’s given me. I did 50 events, gave a ton of interviews explaining complex historical and geopolitical issues, and met hundreds of readers, many of whom shared the stories of silence in their own families. I also just learned that I’m a finalist for the California Book Award. All in all, this has been an incredibly humbling experience.

In a way, I’m ready to move on to next projects. But I’m not sure the book is quite done with me yet. And maybe that’s the point. After all, books are supposed to outlive us. In November, my publisher will release the paperback edition and I might do more things around that. I just hope - once again - that by then, peace in Ukraine will be either reality or an actual possibility, and that authoritarian tendencies sweeping our country won’t reach their full force.

Publications

• I interviewed author Boris Fishman about The Unwanted, his latest novel about a family fleeing an unnamed country ravaged by war for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Fishman was the second Soviet-born American writer I’ve read (the first was Gary Shteyngart), so I was very curious to ask him about how writing changes throughout an author’s career as well as about his own refugee experience as part of the late-1980s USSR-Vienna-Italy path that so many friends of mine took as kids.

• I wrote an op-ed for Time Magazine called “80 Years Later, Both Trump and Putin Brand WWII a Victory”

Upcoming events

If you’re in the Bay Area in May, I’d like to invite you to a few awesome literary events. There are a lot to choose from and - best of all - they all feature interesting writers and not just me :)

• Jewish Arts & Bookfest | Sunday, May 4 @ 1PM | Berkeley. I’ll be on a panel with Olga Zilberbourg, Margarita Meklina, Tatyana Sundeyeva talking about growing up on a diet of Russian lit.

• Talk with Jon Hickey on “Big Chief” | Wed, May 14 @ 6:30PM | Mill Valley Library. I’ll talk to Jon about his gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family and belonging, set on a reservation.

• Sebastopol Litcrawl | Sat, May 17 @2PM | Travel through time with a few of my favorite local authors: Lee Kravetz, Michael David Lukas, Joy Lanzendorfer and Kirsten Menger-Anderson.

• Bay Area Book Fest | June 1 @ 11:15 | Berkeley. “Fiction Debuts Navigating Historical Memory” is the panel I’ll be on along with Sam Sax, Rickey Fayne, and Betty Shamieh.

What I’m reading:

Fiction: The Unwanted by Boris Fishman about a family is running away from an unnamed country ravaged by civil war. Big Chief by Jon Hickey, a political thriller set on a reservation.

Nonfiction: Refugees are clearly on my mind because I’m checking out journalist Jeanne Carstensen’s A Greek Tragedy about the 2015 shipwreck off the Greek coast as well as Displaced by journalist Valery Panyushkin about civilians affected by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Next reads: Jacqueline Doyle’s flash chapbook The Missing Girl; Alka Joshi’s brand new Six Days in Bombay; and Endling by Maria Reva (forthcoming in June)

Hope you’re well despite it all!

xoxo Sasha