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

I enjoy carnivals, circuses, harlequins, masks, mystery, and the complete overturning and subversion of social norms, rules, and conventions that goes with them. One of…

The word feminist has been ladened with a load of negative baggage: you hate men, you burn bras, you hate your own tradition, you think…

You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfume and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. –…

Most people swoon at the very mention of Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian novelist who rose to prominence in the late 1980s with The Alchemist, regarding…

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.