Author: Marsha

I write historical fiction, mostly from the perspective of young people who are thrust in the midst of war.

Excerpt: Still Alive

CHAPTER ONE
The List
Saturday, November 5, 2022
A ski village in the Carpathian Mountains
Babushka sat across from me at the kitchen table in the ski
chalet where our families had been living for the past few
months. Drone components were laid out in front of us, and
our shared tool set was spread out on a cloth between us: solder
gun, clippers, ties, and tweezers. Babushka’s training as a jeweler
made her a natural for assembling drones, which were desperately needed by the Ukrainian army. When she asked if I
could help, I’d jumped at the chance. I had just finished heat-
shrinking the second antenna to the frame of my drone when
Mom walked in carrying mugs of tea.
“Stop right there for a moment, Yaroslava,” said Babushka.
Her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth, and her brow
was creased in concentration.
“There,” she said, setting down her needle- nose pliers.

“Camera secured.” She looked up at Mom. “Thank you for
the tea.”
“Rada, are you able to take a bit of a break? I’d like to show
you something outside,” Mom said.
“Perfect timing,” I said, stretching to ease the stiffness in my
back. We’d been working for hours without a break. I grabbed
my mug and followed her outside to my favorite spot on the rock
that overlooked the mountains.
Mom pulled her phone out and swiped it on. She held it up to
show me. “I just got a message from Dariia on my Facebook
Messenger account.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “Is she okay?”
“She’s healthy. She’s living with a Russian family in a suburb
of Moscow, and she’s treated like a prisoner and a servant.
They’ve changed her name and birth date. I’ve got all the
details here.”
“Wow,” I said, pulling out my own phone. I always put my
notifications on silent when I make drones. “I’ve got a message
too.” I opened it. “The same as yours, Mom. But there’s a second one too.”
“What does it say?”
I opened the second message and showed it to her. “It’s a page
of addresses and names.”

Mom grabbed the phone from me. “It’s a listing of
Ukrainian kids, with their original names and new Russian
names, I bet. The addresses are in Russia. And the contact information lines up with the kids’ Ukrainian names.
I think these are other Ukrainian kids who were kidnapped
to Russia, like Dariia.”
“Dariia is so smart,” I said. “I bet that’s exactly what this is.”
“This is the best news we’ve had in a long time.”
I clung to Mom, and we bawled our eyes out. Dariia was alive.
We knew where she was, and we could now communicate with
her. And in typical Dariia fashion, she wasn’t just worried about
saving her own skin, she was helping others who were stuck like
she was.
“What do we do now, Mom?”
“We tell her that we’re okay and we’re working on a way to get
her out.”
“But how will we do that, Mom?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ll figure this out.”
Mom keyed in a message to Dariia and showed it to me before
hitting Send:
“Rada and I are sheltering in the Carpathian Mountains.
Your father is in a Russian prisoner of war camp. Info on other
kids welcome. We love you.”

Mom handed me back my phone. I leaned into her shoulder
and held the phone between us. I slowly scrolled through the
names until I reached the information about my sister.
“She’s in Serpukhov,” I said.
“That’s practically all the way to Moscow,” said Mom.
“She may as well be on the moon. How can we possibly rescue
her from there?” I asked.
“We’ll figure it out,” said Mom. “Keep scrolling.”
“Look,” I said. “This girl named Genya is also in Serpukhov.”
I scrolled back up to Dariia and then back to Genya. “They’re
in the same apartment building. Even the same unit.”
“If there are two kids in the same place, maybe we can connect with the other family and work together.”
“The mother’s number is right here,” I said, enlarging it on
the screen.
Mom punched the number into her phone.
It rang, and rang, and rang.
No one picked up.
It didn’t go to voicemail.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the mother had been captured,
or maybe killed. Or maybe just the phone was dead— buried in
the burning rubble of a Russian bombing. I groaned. “This is
impossible.”

Mom wrapped me in a hug. “None of this is easy. Show me
Genya’s information again.”
I scrolled to the spot and showed it to her.
“Let’s try the aunt,” she said.
Mom put her phone on speaker and keyed in the aunt’s number. One ring, two. Then a prompt to leave a voice message.
Mom looked startled. “Um, ah . . .”
I leaned closer to the phone and said, “This is Yaroslava
Popkova. My daughter was kidnapped, just like your niece.
They’re living in the same apartment. Please call me.” I keyed
in Mom’s number at the prompt, then disconnected and sent the
same message by text.
“Thank you,” Mom said. “I had a deer-in-headlights moment.”
“I get it,” I said. “And now we’re one step closer.”
“Let’s just hope she gets the message and she’s able to call
back,” said Mom. “And we’ve got all these other kids’ families to
work with too. We’ll figure this out.”

Scholastic at school blog: Under Attack

Here’s the link to the interview on Scholastic Canada’s blog.

What inspired you to write your book?

Under Attack was inspired by Russia’s 86-day siege of Mariupol, Ukraine in 2022, and their massive kidnapping campaign of Ukrainian kids.

The book starts on the first day of Russia’s war on Ukraine and it follows the fate of Dariia and her mother as they are separated from the rest of their family. They barely survive, day by day, hour by hour, as missiles rain down. The two are ultimately captured and separated and Dariia is sent to a brainwashing camp in Russia and placed with a Russian family.

This current event that is still unfolding resonates deeply with me, because I had already written a book about it: Stolen Girl, set during the Nazi Lebensborn program in WWII. Putin obviously gains inspiration from Hitler.

What did you enjoy most about writing?

I love shedding light on quiet heroes. As I was doing the research for this book, I was in awe of the brave and creative audacity of individual Ukrainians fighting and sabotaging in each small way that they could against the behemoth that is Russia.

What were some challenges that you faced while writing?

This was an emotionally devasting book to write. I am of Ukrainian heritage.

When writing about a war that’s still going on, one must honour those who are living through it but not betray their privacy. For this reason, the characters are inspired by real people, but for the events, I didn’t use anything that was shared in confidence. Instead, I used documented testimony, interviews, and accounts.

What do you hope your readers will take away from your book?

I want my readers to step into Dariia’s shoes and feel what it’s like to have war come to your home.

How do you come up with the names for your characters?

This novel is set in Mariupol, Ukraine in 2022. In that time and place, there are given names and surnames that are in common use. The names that I use in this book are all derived from real names of people living there in 2022.

What books have had the biggest impact on your life?

I am dyslexic and taught myself how to read when I was nine years old and in grade four for the second time. I chose Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist as the book I would marathon through until I could read. That book changed my life. Up until that time, I knew how to cheat at reading – guess, memorize, look at pictures – but Oliver Twist required that I actually sound out letters inside of each word and say it out loud to figure out the word. It took me a whole year to read it, but as I became a better reader, the story began to play like a movie in my head. None of the remedial readers that teachers had tormented me with up to that time ever put movies in my head. After reading Oliver Twist, I knew that I wanted to write novels that put movies in people’s heads. And I wanted to write on similar themes like what Charles Dickens did – and if you’ve read my books, you know that I do. But I also decided that I’d leave out the words that people skip over. Dickens was paid by the word, and so he used too many.

 What books were your favourite to read growing up?

Because I came to reading in an unusual way, I didn’t select books in a usual way. After reading Oliver Twist, I decided to read all the big fat books in the children’s novel section in alphabetical order by author’s last name. That meant I read all of Louisa May Alcott, Walter Brooks’ Freddie the Pig series, Diary of Anne Frank – because it was mis-shelved with the As, and Black Beauty because it was mis-shelved as a B-authored book. I didn’t get to the end of the alphabet by the time I reached high school and figured out better ways of selecting reading material.

What’s your writing process look like?

I do considerable research before I start writing, and then kamikaze research during. My standard routine is to write for three hours a day and that three hours would consist of reading and revising what I’d written the day before, and then plunging forward on new scenes. Beginning a novel is always the hardest and I can rewrite the first 25% of a novel over and over again before finally getting it to gel and then I’m off galloping. Once I get to THE END for the first time, revision starts. The first draft usually takes about six months and the edits can take a similar length of time.

What’s next for you?

I’m working on a story about a real girl in the medieval times who’s captured as a slave and becomes a queen. It may or may not end up being a trilogy.

A shout-out to Karen Autio

Karen Autio is a gifted author of books for children and she’s written from a broad range of themes, most recently, inclusion and friendship.

I first met Karen decades ago but we live at opposite ends of the country so don’t see each other that often. We met up before the launch and had dinner together and then throughout the launch, she looked after me, bringing cookies, making sure I didn’t lose things, taking pictures.

Check out her books! They are WONDERFUL!

Karen Autio

Koota Ooma book launch!

Dare I say that I absolutely LOVE Koota Ooma? And it’s not just because a book display like this is every author’s dream. It’s also because the entire Koota Ooma team is just so nice and knowledgeable about Ukrainian-themed books and Ukrainian language books. They also have the BEST and unique Ukrainian items, like clothing, houseware and jewelry.

Here are some photos from the event.