Now in Paperback

I’m excited to announce that Your Presence Is Mandatory comes out in paperback on Nov. 4! With a lovely new look, I hope you pre-order one today. If you already have it, thank you, but also it makes the perfect snowy gift for the holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah or even Soviet New Year’s). Strong pre-orders tell bookstores to stock Your Presence Is Mandatory, which will allow me to keep up this authoring gig a little longer.

This cover was inspired by the French edition of my novel. My team at Bloomsbury loved the snowy design of the French so much that they decided to adapt it for the paperback. I hope the new look will help get it into the hands of readers who love historical fiction, cozy winter reads or just need more blue books for their bookshelf.

To celebrate the launch, I’m having a reading party on Nov. 4 where I’ll share the stage with a few of my close author supporters: Susanne Pari, Olga Zilberbourg, Lee Kravetz, Jacqueline Doyle and Molly Antopol. I’m doing a couple of other little events, but not going all out as I’ve done over 50 events over the past 1.5 years since the book came out.

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Sami Rohr Prize Ceremony

Last month, I traveled to New York to receive the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. The ceremony was held at a stunning venue and I met the three Rohr children who instituted this prize in honor of their father, the famous Rabbi David Wolpe, the three finalists, and a lot of supporters of Jewish literature. I was quite nervous about my speech, but it helped to have my husband and a few of my girlfriends in the audience. Apparently my husband teared up while I spoke, which was only the second time he’d ever teared up (the first was when he saw our first-born). If you’re curious, you can watch the speech and the ceremony here.

I’m beyond grateful for this once-in-a-lifetime experience and the generosity of the Rohr family.

What I’m Reading

Fiction: Boy from the North Country by Sam Sussman is an autofictional novel about a son who returns to care for his dying mother and discovers the story of her turbulent romance with Bob Dylan, whose son he may or may not be. I met Sam at my Sami Rohr event in New York and highly recommend you pick up this novel.

Nonfiction: Chesnok by Polina Chesnakova is a gorgeous new cookbook featuring perfected recipes from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

On my nightstand: Kaplan’s Plot by Jason Diamond about a Jewish-Ukrainian grandfather/Chicago gangster, Tell Me Yours I’ll Tell You Mine by Kristina Ten is a short story collection perfect for the spooky season.

I hope you’re enjoying the Fall season, wherever you may be.

xx Sasha

Holy moly! I won California Book Award & Sami Rohr Prize

I’m beyond excited to announce that I’m the winner of not just one, but two incredibly prestigious awards. How that happened I honestly don’t know. I’m not being facetious. There are certain things that I expected from publishing my novel, some of which happened and some of which didn’t. But these two awards weren’t something I expected. Which makes it all the more rewarding.

First off, Your Presence Is Mandatory won the California Book Award for First Fiction! Given that this book takes place very far from California and the huge number of amazing books that come out from California authors, I was really surprised and hugely honored. This is the 94th year of the awards and is organized by the Commonwealth Club. The winner for Fiction category (not first, but general) is Percival Everett for James, with the silver medal going to Rachel Kushner for Creation Lake, both tremendous novels.

Please join me for the virtual ceremony on Monday, June 23 6-7pm PST.

On the same week, I found out that I’m the winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature! This annual prize, given on alternate years to fiction and nonfiction works, came as an even bigger shock because there is no nomination process for this award, so I didn’t even know I was in consideration. The ceremony was supposed to be in Jerusalem in early July, but obviously everything got rearranged, so now the ceremony will take place in New York on September 3 (more details to come).

I’m tremendously grateful to judges - all deep lovers of books - for appreciating and recognizing what I tried to do with my book. I feel like it gave Your Presence added literary legitimacy and I hope this recognition will lead to more readers discovering this book.

What I’m Reading

Fiction: Endling by Maria Reva is a novel I’ve long looked forward to reading. It’s an absurdist story of three Ukrainian women, a snail, and a truck full of foreign bachelors. Reva was working on it before the full-scale invasion began and it altered the book in incredibly interesting ways. Don’t miss it.

Nonfiction: Our Dear Friends in Moscow by Andrei Soldatov & Irina Borogan, a couple of exiled Russian journalists who track how their friends fell into working for Putin propaganda machine.

On my nightstand: The Night Sparrow by Shelly Sanders (we’re doing an event together in SF on July 17) about a female sniper in the Red Army.

I hope you’re taking occasional breaks from the world’s craziness. My heart goes out to friends & their loved ones in Ukraine, Israel and Iran.