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written about m y predecessors, nor have they written their own memoirs themselves. Since 19 2 5 w e have had many wom en activists and one that comes to mind at this moment is M ary V . Beck who is 94 years old, an attorney and a great orator. Have you heard about her? IZ: Y es, I have heard about her achievements. Have you considered publishing her speeches? In her life time she must have given hundreds o f speeches as a politician and an activist. AK: W hat is your opinion o f the Ukrainian women's organizations? IZ: They have always been incredibly important to the Ukranian Am erican community and they are always on the forefront o f things, whether political, cultural or on issues o f human rights and health. The women's groups alw ays do important work especially for other wom en and children. I have a tremendous respect for them and their activities. AK: W hat is your feeling about the feminist m ove ment o f the 19 70 's in the U S A ? IZ: I w as active, and m y first publications were in feminist magazines. I w as co-editor o f a magazine col lective in Boston called Women o f Power. N ow , look ing back in what is a post feminist era, I find that I was too militant. I don't espouse it anymore in the same w ay - it w as too extreme ideologically, and I can't agree with them, especially with the overt male bash ing I witnessed. W hat they started w as wonderful and exciting at the time, and raised m y consciousness to achieve things and have choices that previous genera tions o f wom en did not have. They had accomplished many things that we take for granted now. I have to give them a tremendous amount o f credit and m y grati tude. I also learned over the years that militancy in any ideology is usually self-defeating and dangerous. AK: A s a moderate now (versus militant before) do you feel that wom en have achieved it all? IZ: Econom ic restrictions still exist in many profes sional fields. There is still a glass ceiling in many pro fessions. A geism is prevalent too. M iddle-aged women are subtly discriminated against. M en too. I think we still haven't dealt adequately with child-care and health issues for women in Am erica. The global trafficking o f wom en and children is a horrendous crime that most governments are not preventing mostly because it's so lucrative. Globally, wom en are still second class citi zens. Thank God for the U N W L A and other N G O 's who speak out and fight on their behalf. AK: W hen you worked as a journalist for the newspa pers, did you find that you were discriminated against? IZ: N o, not really. A t least not to m y face. Oh, well, people always joked about m y last name - how hard it was to pronounce. I remember I called a librarian for some information about a story I was working on. I was a reporter then, and was about to bring out The Sky Unwashed. W e were talking about books, and she wanted to know m y name. I told her. She said, "Oh, I hope you're not going to use that for your book." I said Am ericans can pronounce Solhzhenitsyn and D os toyevsky well enough, so they can learn m y name too. AK: Y o u mentioned you are planning a Creative W riting course for beginners. IZ: Y es, I'll be teaching fiction writing in January 200 3. It's a 10-w eek course on the Internet. I am looking forward to this. AK: I f someone were to ask you - who are you? How would you answer? IZ: I am an Am erican, but I am Ukrainian as well. I am a Ukrainian-Am erican. AK: Have you ever been in a situation when someone spoke against your background? IZ: Not that I recall here in the U S A . AK: Is there a message you would like to give to the readers o f Our Lifel IZ: I think that I would like to see more Ukrainian Am erican wom en writers, particularly writing in Eng lish. It's one thing to tell each other who w e are and it is another thing to tell Am ericans who w e are in the society that w e live in. It is very important that we have a body o f literature in this country about Ukraini ans and about Ukrainian Am ericans, which is what I am trying to do. A las, I am only one person and I am writing what I can write. But there is so much history, there is so much going on, there is so much about who w e are as a people in this country and other places that is so rich and fascinating that w e desperately need more writers. M any stories are waiting to be told, es pecially by women. AK: Please tell me and our readers about your new book to be released in April 200 3. IZ: When Luba Leaves Home. This is a collection o f interrelated short stories. Som e were published and some were not. N o w they are all together in this book. Luba is a young wom an about 19 years old. Actually she was bom in Germ any in a D P camp, and along with her older brother and the fam ily, comes to live in Chicago. It takes place in the 1960's. She's a college student who decides that she wants to become an Am erican. So she changes her name to Linda. She tries to escape the neighborhood where the other Ukrainian emigres live and she gets her own car. She also experiences the political and emotional conflicts brewing in the country because o f the war in Vietnam. Luba tries to find herself in the two cultures - one Ukrainian and one Am erican. AK: I thank you very much. I am sure that our read ers will find your new book fascinating and many o f them most likely w ill relate to the story it portrays. 18 “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛЮТИЙ 2003 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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