This is a space for the stories that linger. You’ll find Slavic myths retold, original poetry, book reviews, and honest writing about the creative life — the work behind the work, and the life behind the work. Old stories have always carried something we haven’t quite named yet. That’s why we keep returning to them.


Gods, spirits, and old tales

Poems for the moments that don’t fit

On writing, making things, and building a creative career

As Elizabethan literary theorist Sir Philip Sidney claims in his 16th century work titled The Defence of Poesie, the purpose of poetry, later extended to…

The idea of a completely reliable narrator is quite a questionable subject, since we are all unreliable when it comes to telling our own stories,…

After I’d completed A.J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window, I put the book down in my lap, leaned back, and stared somewhere into the…

tick-tock the hands roll spinning out of control pen stuck in a rut bleeding ink into a cut lecherous white face grins from the wall…

I’m Erna — writer, poet, devoted cat lady, and a marketer who came to it the strange way, through stories. Slavic mythology sits at the heart of this space, alongside original poetry, book reviews, and honest writing about the creative life.
Pull up a chair. There’s always something worth reading.
Beneath the Surface is a poetry collection about the things we don’t say out loud — the secrets, the weaknesses, the quiet monsters of everyday life. Read more.
New myths, new poems, new stories — whenever they’re ready.