Literally /as figuratively/

Words are my superpower; they protect me, guide me, and help me. I feel at ease with them. I speak six languages. I mean, really speak: four of them – at the level of a native speaker – and two at an advanced level. I read like a maniac, a book addict. I write when I am happy, sad, bored, or frustrated. My world consists of words, even if the people around me don’t hear them or can’t read them.

I remember my first typewriter. It was red, as many things were in the Soviet Union. My young mother was constantly abandoning me with my Grandpa, who was stuck in a wheelchair. She was ambitious, chasing her dreams in a world falling apart around her. She was defending her thesis at the time, traveling in a pre-digital world between libraries in Kyiv, Moscow, and Saint Petersburg.

Suddenly, she discovered that my small fingers and my adult attention to detail could help her. I was excited to be in charge of the corrector – the miraculous bottle of white liquid that Grandma brought us from faraway Finland. Thanks to this wonderful innovation, Mom didn’t have to retype the pages if she made a mistake; she could correct a typo, and I was always willing to help. While I painted over French letters – she was defending her thesis on something about French grammar – receiving the odd satisfaction of having power over words, she paced around the room. In the Soviet Union, in any thesis, any scientific work or research, Stalin and Lenin had to be quoted extensively, even if they never spoke on that topic. It was hard for her to find anything relatable in their biographies to French adverbs and nouns, and it bothered her.

I was always winning writing competitions and wrote articles for newspapers to earn my first money. I remember I wrote an article on some football player for a hugely popular Ukrainian football magazine. After publication, they asked me to stop by to pick up my paycheck, and they couldn’t believe I was the one who wrote it. I stood there, fourteen years old, a girl!, tiny and scared; the editor-in-chief came out to take a look at me.

Unfortunately, in Ukraine, it was pretty impossible to earn one’s living by writing. At the same time, another prominent career was waiting for me. It was not the same, but it was close enough. I became a screenwriter. In the 2000s in Ukraine, it was something unheard of; none of the universities even had such a course. I was lucky to rely solely on my intuition and to earn the trust of the emerging powerful industry simply because nobody knew how it should be done, so my way was good enough. I did shows that had unbelievable ratings, rose the whole generation of Ukrainians who were proud of their country after we showed how modern, progressive and stylish it is.

By the age of 27, I was the head of the department of unscripted television at one of the biggest broadcasters in Ukraine. I continued my career in Spain, France, and now in Canada. Even though my words were floating all around me, with people quoting my texts for the hosts, my voiceovers and teasers, I felt it was not enough. I have too much to say; I need to write it down and wait for you to read it.