happy russians (& other fairy tales) 

Lenk, Jerico. happy russians (& other fairy tales), 2022. University of Washington, Master of Fine Arts creative thesis.

MFA creative thesis: a novella in fractal & fragment. 

In the realm of The Balloonists, A Pillow Book, or A Door Behind a Door.

Lyric hybrid novella with postgender/queer theory and poststructuralist underpinnings, examining the mythos of identity, family, and one’s own reality. Foregoing conventions which divide prose and poetry manifests in structure the themes of memory, scattered identities, and psychology such as repetition compulsion or the redefinition of family units. Demonstrates "pathetic aesthetics," a craft strategy I presented on Fellowship at Arizona State University’s 2021 Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference, which adapts the "Show, Don’t Tell" technique for inclusivity by focusing on close observation details to activate and/or generate image via sensory embodiment of language, rather than traditional "image in the mind." 

in russian tradition, we’re all very sad & then we die.

conjuncture. disjuncture. passing queer, self-medicated, watered-down russian, second-best writer, seeking a mother who remembers he’s a person, a brother without hospital bracelets, a boyfriend who can’t see the patterns within the patterns like the place a dead dad used to be. the алконост chases the сирин out of the tsar's apple grove, the гамаюн sings. the fire-bird nests on a shipwreck. russians believe in happy endings, too, it’s just that some endings begin in different places, and they’re happy with that. 

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