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.


When I moved house in 2023, moving my home library was a special slice of hell. It took me six months to arrange my bookshelves the way I liked them and to finally feel comfortable and settled in my reading space. I used the upheaval as a reason to install…

I read Land by Maggie O’Farrell a few weeks ago, and it took me time to understand how I felt about it and what I wanted to say. O’Farrell’s book is wide open, like the land itself. She takes a place, a windswept peninsula in the west of Ireland, puts…

Gods, spirits, and old tales

Poems for the moments that don’t fit

On writing, making things, and building a creative career
Evertree Crescent was a sickle moon of 1930s bungalows, which lay two minutes from Pagford’s main square. In number thirty-six, a house tenanted longer than…

I’m holding this photograph, of a young woman, who looks quite like me, yet her hair is different, darker, tied up in a bun and…

A strange sensation, prickly and painful, under my ribs. Shortening my breath tingling underneath tightening my stomach, an unusual kind of pain, anxiety they call…

‘Come on, get up! Wake up, come on, it’s started again! Move! Let’s go!’ The blast shook the house. Mother pulled me out of the…

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.