Interview with a writer (me) | Part 1

Have a wonderful day, friends!
Recently I've been interviewed by the Knigoland book shops chain – for their blog. I decided to translate that interview into English to spread a word about... myself worldwide😁 In English – exclusively for Steemit. I devided that interview into a few parts. Here's Part 1.

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Yuliya Vrotna is mainly a poet and author of fairy tales, but sometimes she also dabbles in being a prose writer and translator.
The laureate of the 2nd Smoloskyp Prize 2021 for a collection of poems, the winner of the Children's Coronation of Words 2021, a participant in poetry and video poetry contests, forums and festivals.
She wrote and published: "Wobler"poetry collection (2016), "Pussy Sausage-juicy" fairytale for the collection "Fountain of Fairy Tales. Modern Ukrainian Fairy Tales", (2019), "The Diary of a Yellow Dog" children's book (2021), "Dragon Babies" children's book (2023). Also, her texts and translations were published in the "The Rock Book" almanac (2018), "For Invincible" poetry collection (2023), "The Dictionary of War" prose book (2023), several poetry anthologies.

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Mrs. Yuliya, please tell us a little about your first fairy tales. What were they like for you?

My interest in children's literature arose spontaneously in 2016. Already now I understand that it was a kind of escapism from reality. Then I wrote the first short poems. They have not yet been published anywhere, but someday, perhaps, they will be.
My first fairy tale in verse was "Comrade Maggot". It was almost published by the publishing house "Fountain of Fairy Tales" in the collection of the same name. But just before signing the layout for printing, the director banned this find of the editor (in his opinion, the main character was disgusting and would fail the sales of the book). So we agreed to replace the fairy tale.
Recently, for fun, I've read my first, still unpublished poems ("Comrade Maggot", "Backward Fairytale" and "Dental Drill") at a poetry duel, and thanks to them I passed to the finals. So such texts are definitely suitable for an adult audience:) I think children will also like them. I will look for ways to publish these pearls after all, because I still like them, after so many years.

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Do you like to reread your old texts? Why?

Sometimes I reread my texts for children, especially unpublished ones — to understand whether they are still up to date and do not violate new social norms. For example, I recently applied for a grant to print a collection of inclusive children's poems, so I reread each line. I carefully rewrote everything where there was outdated vocabulary (for example, I replaced a "cart" with a "wheelchair", said goodbye to the words "tolerance" and "tolerant" in favor of "inclusiveness", added feminitives).
Also recently I've reread my unfinished short story called "No plastic — it's fantastic!", and also put it in the queue for hard editing, since the realities of handling recyclables have changed in our society.
I do not reread poetry for adults written before 2016, it is a turned page.

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Among your portfolio is the fairy tale called "Pussy Sausage-juicy". Tell me, please, how did you come up with such an unusual name?

"Pussy Sausage-juicy" is exactly the text that replaced "Comrade Maggot" in the "Fountain of Fairy Tales. Modern Ukrainian fairy tales" collection.
I remember looking at our cat Markiza sniffing a sausage sandwich, and the pun "kitty-sausage-juicy" popped into my head (in Ukrainian language it makes some sense while in English, unfortunately, not — Yuliya). It was a pidgin version of 2 languages. But I liked it, so I Ukrainianized & literaryized this phrase, and decided to use it in a poem for children.
In a similar way, I came up with the name of the children's story "Korovai Who Shared WiFi" (and then the whole story started from this name): one of my colleagues brought a huge korovai loaf to the office and placed it next to the router. I just got hooked on this image with my eyes: it didn't let me go for a long time, and then I realized that "korovai" rhymes with "wifi". By the way, this fantastic novel with elements of techno should be published by the publishing house "NK - Bohdan" in 2024. Ivan Andrusiak (the editor and very famous Ukrainian writer — Yuliya) called the text absolutely crazy in the good sense of the word, and I agree with him.

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If you liked reading this interview, come to my page in a few days to read the Part 2😁 Thank you!

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