Adjusting to a novel life in America

Like Masha, the central character in her debut novel, The Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories (W.W. Norton Company, Inc.), Ellen Litman came to the United States from Moscow and faced the challenges of assimilation into a new culture.

Like her character, Litman also initially pursued studies in computer science and mathematics before following her dream.

“I think the first years of adjusting, assimilating and coming to terms with this new life were very close to what I actually experienced,” says Litman, assistant professor of English and associate director of UConn’s Creative Writing Program.

 “The events themselves were different — Masha is not a writer, although she ends up studying literature — but the major theme is true. My teachers and parents explained there was not a place to study writing in Russia and no future in it.”

Arriving with her family in Pittsburgh, where her aunt lived, Litman finally was able to begin writing after first working as a computer programmer and earning a master’s degree in English from Syracuse University.  She eventually began to write about Squirrel Hill, the Russian immigrant community within Pittsburgh.

“I always knew I was writing the stories as part of a collection,” she says.

“I didn’t know how closely linked they would be or that it would become a novel of stories. I did know they would have a theme (Russian immigrants), they would be set in the same neighborhood and, to some degree, there would be recurring characters.”

The Last Chicken in America follows the life of a young woman who struggles to synthesize multiple generations and cultures within a community of families trying to do the same.

The book has been well-received, with Publisher’s Weekly describing it as “less like a novel than a coherent set of mostly first-person character studies by a very promising writer.”

Litman’s talent has also been recognized within the writing community. She was the recipient of a 2006 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, which is presented to “women writers who demonstrate excellence and promise in the early stages of their careers.”               

Even as she continues to travel around the United States to promote her book this fall, Litman is busy teaching a graduate fiction workshop and organizing events for the Creative Writing Program.

In the spring, she will teach a course on producing literary magazines — in this case UConn’s Long River Review — as well as continuing work on her next novel, set in Russia during the mid-1980s, the years of the breakup of the Soviet Union known as perestroika. Litman says after that novel is completed she will change topics.

“I think my next project will not have anything to do with Russia. I do want to look at other things,” she says. “It will be an interesting challenge.” 

— Kenneth Best

Unforgettable Vignettes of Love
Susan Schneider ’70 (CLAS)
(Cold Tree Press)

Schneider’s short and breezy compilation of true stories is a real-world version of the popular television comedy “How I Met Your Mother.” Crisscrossing the United States, the author tells a series of stories about how people find their mates, including former teenage lovers who reunite years later, the drummer who meets the college student and how opposites attract.

The Green Lion
The Golden Thorns
Leigh Grossman
(Wildside Press)

Grossman, a UConn adjunct professor of English, has revisited the two books he wrote more than a decade ago, rewriting them with the benefit of his years of editing, teaching and game design experience. Both fast-paced fantasy tales provide medieval adventure with a different cast of characters. The Golden Thorns features wizards, monsters, pirates, knights and rogue professors. The Green Lion focuses on a magical conspiracy involving an innkeeper’s son and a mysterious noblewoman.

Forever Home
Sandra J. Philipson’95 (6th Year)
(Cleveland Clinic Press)

The author’s “Max and Annie” series of children’s books have usually focused on the real-life experiences of her dogs. The latest installment of Philipson’s dog tales fictionalizes the early life of the newest canine in the household, the three-legged English springer spaniel, Trini, whose early beginnings are largely unknown. Richly illustrated by Jenny Campbell, the book includes information on rescue organizations to help abandoned dogs.