This coming Sunday, May 5th, Orthodox Christians around the world celebrate Easter. The Roanoke Ukrainian community will gather at 3rd Street Coffeehouse to celebrate with prayers, hugs and a ton of amazing home cooked Ukrainian food, keeping their culture and traditions alive. I’m proud that they invited me to participate. They are my friends, thanks to a Roanoke Times feature article written by Heather Rousseau in November of 2022. It was about a young Ukrainian mother and her son who had arrived in Roanoke as refugees from the war. That Christmas season, I met Jenya, her son Egor, and the rest of the local Ukrainian community. That was the beginning of an amazing journey.
Soon, Jenya and Egor were joining my family for trips to hockey games, baseball games and Blue Cow Ice Cream. I spoiled Egor like a grandson, and Jenya let me. I gave Jenya driving lessons, helping her to overcome deep-seated fear and achieve her goals for independence. As the three of us came to know each other, a bond of trust developed. I learned a lot about Jenya, Egor, Ukraine and their lives before the war. We talked about their hopes and dreams to return to Ukraine, to rejoin her husband, mother, family and friends / fellow Ukrainians in fighting off the invaders. There was laughter, tears and a whole lot of hope.
One day while driving around a parking lot with them, an idea hit me. I told Jenya that I should write a book about them. Proceeds from sales of the books could go to rebuild Ukraine and it would also help Americans understand that Ukrainians are just like us in so many ways. She giggled and told me I was crazy. I couldn’t argue the crazy part, but I told her that every single book in every bookstore started with someone saying “I’m gonna write a book”! We both laughed pretty hard, but the idea didn’t die there. You could say it was divinely inspired and those ideas are pretty hard to let go of.
In August of 2023, I drove Jenya and Egor up to Dulles airport for their return to Ukraine. It was pretty tough emotionally, for all three of us. In the fall of 2023, I sketched out an outline for the book and shared it with Jenya. Since that time, I have been writing. A chapter here and a chapter there, almost 40,000 words. I interviewed many local Ukrainians about different aspects of Ukrainian culture and history, which I find fascinating. Tad Dickens, a superb journalist and newspaper editor for many years, came onto the project as my editor and has really done a great job. I’m pretty proud of the work that we’ve done. Jenya has provided a lot of critical information about her life before the war, her life under Russian occupation and as a refugee. It's quite a story and one I look forward to sharing in the book.
Today, I’m proud to announce that by the time this Sunday arrives, the manuscript should be about 98% complete. I’m ready for the next big step which is convincing a literary agent to back the project and help get a publication deal. Getting the manuscript to this point is kind of a big milestone, one that I hope you’ll celebrate with me. Hopefully, the agents and publishers like it and it will serve the intended purpose of defending and rebuilding Ukraine. With luck, it will be on the bookshelves at your favorite bookseller before Christmas.
