As I was preparing to send a draft of this post to this week’s featured writer/editor, Iryna Somkina, Iryna herself was enduring the horrors of the latest drone and missile attacks by Russia on the Ukrainian capitol of Kyiv, where Iryna now lives and–somehow, in the midst of everything–writes some incredible creative nonfiction in English as well as a bit of poetry. “Honestly, my life has been so intense and packed with reality that there’s absolutely no point in even trying to write fiction,” she writes.
Originally from Donbas, which has been a focal point in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she is also preparing to launch a new literary magazine, Sunday Morning, which will make its official debut Sunday, July 26. She also serves as fiction editor for Michigan City Review of Books.
I have such great respect for Iryna’s commitment to writing even in the midst of a horrific and senseless war, and even greater respect for her decision to create a new forum on which writers may publish their work.
Read on to learn more about Iryna’s writing, her new lit mag, and how she generates ideas for her writing.
1. Tell me about your writing journey. When did you first realize you wanted to become a writer, and how has that passion for writing evolved?
I guess I didn’t really have a choice when it came to a creative path. I grew up in an artistic environment where my parents were independent musicians and my sister was an incredibly talented songwriter who was already writing both song lyrics in English and music by the age of eleven. Being surrounded by them, I spent years dealing with a massive case of imposter syndrome, feeling like the least gifted person in the room. But that hidden pressure is exactly what pushed me to find my own voice through text–even if my parents still draw a total blank when it comes to my writing.
Back in my university days, while studying political science, I had plenty of free time to experiment with native languages, and I thought I was on the verge of a literary breakthrough (spoiler: I wasn’t). Then the war broke out. I had to move to the capital, and creativity quickly took a backseat to pure survival. I built a solid career by local standards and even managed a retail chain. Today, I work at an international company on a slightly lower tier, but it finally gives me the respect, boundaries, and mental balance I need to breathe.
When the full-scale war escalated, the existential questions hit hard: if everything ends for me tomorrow, what is actually left of me? Who am I without my spreadsheets and performance charts? Right around that time, I booted up the classic video game Fahrenheit. From the very first frames, I knew that I had to write again. Some time later, I dug up an old draft, reworked it, and sent it to Gone Lawn. I didn’t even know how hard it is to appear in Gone Lawn, and from that time, things just took off from there. (NOTE: Her story, “The Change of Weather,” appeared in Gone Lawn in June 2025.)
2. You recently launched your literary magazine, Sunday Morning. What inspired you to create this new outlet for writers?
The real trigger for Sunday Morning was a wave of frustration and genuine grief for our community. Almost simultaneously, two of my absolute favorite indie literary journals shut down almost permanently, largely due to the suffocating, unmanageable avalanche of submissions their editors just couldn’t keep up with. Right after that, a third venue I deeply respected announced an indefinite hiatus. I remember looking at my screen and realizing that the safe spaces for writers were physically shrinking before our eyes.
This happened literally the day after my thirty-fourth birthday. It felt like too loud of a cosmic sign to ignore, so I decided that instead of mourning closed doors, it was time to build a new one and invite people in. Stepping into an editorial role isn’t entirely foreign to me–I was the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and absolutely loved the process. I’ve always felt like a manager or a journalist who loves creative writing, and I thrive on structuring chaos.
Because I am a non-American writer living in Europe, I know firsthand the sheer anxiety of calculating US time zones just to hit a deadline. To fix this for our global contributors, I added clocks tracking multiple time zones right onto our website. Now, writers from any continent know exactly down to the second when our submission windows open or when a new story goes live.
I don’t see Sunday Morning as a competitive venture because there is simply no room for competition in indie literature. The more platforms we have, and the more authors get a shot at being published, the healthier and more resilient our entire literary ecosystem becomes. I just wanted to build another steady, reliable platform where voices can be preserved.
3. What guidance or suggestions do you have for writers who want to be published in Sunday Morning?
Let’s be completely real: editorial taste is always entirely subjective. First and foremost, I look for a specific vibe and rely heavily on intuition. I don’t care about rigid academic formulas; I care about that visceral click you get when a text hits you and you just think, Yes, this is it.
Form-wise, I am deeply drawn to classic structures and slice-of-life, domestic prose. But there has to be a hook–an unexpected angle, a strange lens, or a completely unusual aspect found within a thoroughly ordinary situation. Tell a familiar story in a way no one else has thought to look at it.
The ultimate baseline is right there in our title. It needs to be a story you want to read on a Sunday Morning, whatever that morning looks like for you, whether it’s peaceful, melancholy, or heavy. The text should offer a sense of autonomy, a space to catch your breath. This is also why we have a strict, slightly esoteric word count limit: a maximum of 2323 words. It should fit perfectly into the span of a single morning cup of coffee or tea. If you want to accurately gauge our atmosphere, my best advice is to wait for our official debut on July 26th.
4. Where do the ideas for your creative nonfiction, poetry, and other forms of writing come from?
My creative DNA is heavily dictated by my background. Growing up with musician parents instilled a permanent sense of rhythm in how I pace sentences and structure text. Visually, my ideas stem from the Donetsk steppes. That vast, minimalist landscape and the raw, quiet power buried in those plains will always be a part of my internal geography. Beneath that, I am shaped by heavy personal realities. I lost my sister, who was the absolute closest person to me, and that loss permanently altered how I value a single moment or a single word. The war has also left its undeniable mark on me. I refuse to write about it directly because I don’t look for speculative plots. But still it acts as a silent, heavy foundation.
To keep my work from collapsing into pure, unmitigated tragedy, I rely on vibrant counterweights. I draw energy from the memories of my wild, chaotic university days, as well as from heavy sports and video games. All these elements converge on a single goal: I love writing about mundane, ordinary things, but I aim for ordinariness at such a sharp angle that the reader is forced to stop and see something entirely transcendent in the middle of a routine day.
5. Finally, what advice do you have for anyone interested in becoming a writer?
My most honest advice is to forget about the money or the fantasy of overnight validation. If you are looking for a stable income, pick a different field entirely. You should only step into writing if there is a literal fire burning inside you, if the words are clawing their way out and you physically cannot function without putting them on paper. Without that internal spark, the first wave of rejections or the sheer routine will burn you out.
But if you do have that fire, throw away your fears. Do not fear the blank page, do not fear sending your work out, and absolutely do not fear the word “no.” Rejection isn’t a verdict on your talent; it is just a routine part of the workflow and a necessary step toward your eventual “yes.”
The single most valuable asset you possess is your own unique view and your unrepeatable experience. Be brutally, fiercely honest in what you write. Editors and readers can easily forgive a raw, unpolished style–but they will never forgive a fake. Be yourself, and your audience will find you.
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Find iryna on Twitter/X at @tlkncrt. Find Sunday Morning on Twitter/X at @sndaymrningmag and on Instagram at @sndaymrningmag.
Andrew Careaga 