Interviews

Laima Vincė: What doors did learning Yiddish open for you? Ellen Cassedy: I started studying Yiddish in 1989 when my mother died, rather young. It was a way to remember her even though she didn’t actually speak Yiddish.   Laima Vincė: She didn’t? Ellen Cassedy: She would sort of sprinkle a word here and there into her speech. I […]

Laima Vincė: Thank you for agreeing to this interview. This is a big deal for the Lithuanian Writers Union and Vilnius Review magazine to have this opportunity to speak with you. Lidia: It’s a big deal for me too.   Laima Vincė: Thank you for that. Lidia: And I’m feeling that you look so much like me.   Laima Vincė: You definitely

Laima Vincė: Can you tell me about how your expertise as a Medievalist influences your poetry? Halyna Kruk: The literature of the Ukrainian baroque is my area of special interest. In Ukrainian literature the baroque period spans from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.   Laima Vincė: How does your work as a scholar of Ukrainian baroque literature

How did you find your way into literature and how did that path lead you into translation? Adam: I grew up in the middle of corn fields and forests, I was an only child and there’s no neighbors or friends really to speak of. So, books were my route into the world. But it was

Laima: Tell me about your Lithuanian heritage. Paul: I grew up mostly in Indiana, first in Bloomington and then in Indianpolis. Our Aunt Estelle, my grandfather’s sister, lived in Chicago. Every now and then we would get a call from her, and she would say, “I’m a half hour away from your house. Get ready.”

Laima: Daiva, you grew up in the Baltimore/Washington DC area. What brought you to Colorado? Daiva: I was building chairlifts at ski areas on the East Coast after I finished my Bachelor’s degree. I did not go to graduate school then as I had planned because I fell in love with the mountain lifestyle in

Laima Vincė: Tell me about your Lithuanian heritage? Milda De Voe: I was born to Lithuanian parents, both of whom were born in Lithuania. My mother was born near the border with Latvia in a tiny town called Skaistgirys near the border of Latvia to the Viliunas-Tijunėlis family and my father was born in Kaunas.

Laima Vincė: Tell me about your Lithuanian heritage? Ken Ilgunas: I know almost nothing about it. All I have is this goofy name—a name that’s normal in Lithuania, but goofy in North America. All we knew, and we do have this Scottish guy in my family who does the family tree work, is that my

Home was a relative concept, and if one day I returned to the country of my past, I would have to learn anew how to live, as though for the first time. I would have to learn a new vocabulary.”– This short yet capacious passage from your most recent novel, I think, is like a

Your poetic attitude separates you from your contemporaries (especially the younger writers). You maintain a close relationship to the literary tradition without seeking novel or (post)postmodern means of expression. Would you agree to be called a poet-lyricist? Does poetry mean encoding and transmitting personal thoughts, experiences, and observations? Poetry means being myself. The form that