From mail-order bride daughter to memoirist: meet Katya Suvorova
"My goal with my memoir has always been to write the book I needed growing up."
Hello, hello!
Happy Friday. Today, I’d like to introduce you to author Katya Suvorova. I could not put down her debut memoir, Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter. In it, she writes about her experience of being raised as an undocumented Russian immigrant—and the daughter of a mail-order bride—in Texas. Her story is sad but timely, and I admire her strength in writing to make sense of it all (and how she adds humor in all the right places).
In this conversation, we talk about how Katya’s childhood experiences shaped her, her writing routine, building an author platform, and much more. So, without further ado, meet Katya.
Alexis: Your memoir, Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter, drops us so vividly into your childhood and your experience as the daughter of a Russian mail-order bride. You write with such tenderness that I felt like I was right there with little you. How did you access that younger version of yourself without over-narrating or over-explaining her?
Katya: This is so incredibly kind of you to say. My writing process for this memoir was unlike any other writing experience I have had before. My outline was literally a list of memories—just words or phrases—of pivotal moments from my life that shaped my worldview. When I sat down to write, I pulled out that list and looked at what memory was next. Then, I closed my eyes and got deep in the memory.
If you’ve ever heard of EMDR, I kind of used this technique to write. EMDR is a therapeutic practice that stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and the idea behind it is to make your most traumatic memories no longer hold a “charge” by exposing yourself to them in a controlled environment.
I did EMDR for about 6 months in 2020, and before each session, my therapist had me write down every single detail of whatever memory we were going to tackle that day. Then she would read the memory out loud to me and turn on a light bar, where a dot of light would bounce left and right, and my eyes would follow it until the memory was no longer triggering for me. I used a similar technique in writing my memoir, except without the light bar. I knew how to dive deep into my memories because of EMDR, and when I felt locked into the memory, I would write.
The things I was thinking and feeling as a child came back to me very clearly, because I literally felt like I was there again. After every writing session, I needed a long time to recover. Being in those memories, remembering my thoughts, feeling how afraid I was, was exhausting, and after I wrote, I would turn off my brain for as long as I could with white noise playlists or reality TV.
Sometimes I pretended to be my own mother (or, really, grandmother) and comforted myself so I felt safe enough to return to my adult self. The goal was to honor the younger versions of myself, and any degree of success I had was because I really, truly was in my child mind.
You write about painful moments with such clarity and restraint. How did you decide what to show versus what to hold back?
My goal with my memoir has always been to write the book I needed growing up, and with that in mind, I would never want to re-traumatize a child going through similar situations who may pick up this book.
If my younger self were reading my memoir, I wouldn’t want her to be triggered. I would want her to feel like I was holding her hand, that she would be cared for in the end, that when things get hard, I would protect her. I approached every scene with this idea and chose a non-chronological structure to give the reader glimpses into the future, so they know that everything will work out in the end. That being said, kids go through some really hard things. I don’t believe they ever need to be shielded from the truth, especially their own truth. Adults can provide a soft landing place for them, and I tried very hard to do that.
You dealt with a lot of hard things at such a young age: leaving your grandparents in Russia, abusive step fathers, and a negligent mother, but still, there’s a steady strength and resilience running through your story. When you look back now, do you recognize that strength in your younger self, or is that something you only see in hindsight?
I think all children start off really resilient. If you think about it, it’s a miracle that babies survive their first year, that toddlers survive their first few years. Kids put everything in their mouths, stick their fingers in every single socket imaginable, and try to jump off cliffs. It’s terrifying, but this means they are constantly learning. Being open to mistakes and growth is the most resilient thing I can think of. Children have to be resilient to make it to adulthood.
So when I look back at my younger self, I see a kid who was doing her best to make it to adulthood, where I could control my surroundings instead of leaving it up to the adults in my life and their poor decision-making. Ironically, I think kids can be even more resilient than adults. When we’re kids, we just have to push through these hard situations, but I see a lot of adults stop wanting to learn and grow simply because they think they are past the age for that sort of thing.
Writing about family, especially when the dynamics are complicated, can come with a lot of internal conflict. What felt most difficult to put on the page, and what surprised you by feeling easier than expected?
The most difficult parts of my story to write about were the good memories. Most of those good memories involved my sister and my babushka.
It is so hard knowing I won’t ever get my babushka in her 70s again. It’s also really hard knowing I won’t get to play in the sandbox with my sister again. That sounds weird, I think, but my grandmother is turning 88 this year, and she has a really hard time walking like she used to. She is almost completely blind. I want her to snorkel with fish and see beautiful birds and all these things, but she is rapidly losing that ability, and there’s nothing I can do.
I’m sorry. That’s so tough, to sort of grieve the memories you’ll never get to make with someone you love. I can relate to this regarding the future moments I’ll never have with my mom.
When I think back to my memories with my sister, I just remember being scared and stressed. I remember wanting to protect her. I didn’t get to play with her. I want to go back and play with dolls and cars, but I can’t now. She’s in her 20s. That time has passed, and it honestly devastates me because I want to know my sister without the fear of survival looming over us.
I thought I would need the most recovery from the more traumatic memories, like us being kidnapped, but I wrote those scenes pretty quickly and easily because I did not want to spend time in them. The good memories I obsessed over because I kept looking for pockets of goodness in my childhood, maybe just to make sure they were there. I was sad to find that a lot of times they weren’t.
Your story touches on identity, belonging, and what it means to grow up between cultures. How has your understanding of “home” evolved since writing the book?
Since finishing the last draft of my book, we’ve permanently left the United States, so this question is profoundly poignant to me right now. The idea of home has changed a lot for me. I think it does for everyone, but especially immigrants. If I got this question before leaving the U.S., I would say “Home” is wherever my grandmother, sister, and husband were. But I had to leave my sister in the U.S., and it’s hard for me to see my grandmother. If they were my home and I couldn’t ever come back to them, then I would have a hard time grounding myself.
My husband is definitely my safe space, but he’s not perfect. He can’t be what I need 100% of the time. I’ve realized, since moving, that home has to be within me. That sounds so cheesy, I know. But if I’ve learned anything these last few years, it’s that your circumstances can truly change in an instant, and when you need to make a fast decision, you have to be able to trust your instincts and your gut. Being put in the position where we’ve had to do that recently, I’ve realized that what has gotten me through is knowing that my actions align with my morals, which has required a steadfast, unshakeable confidence in myself.
I now know that I can be anywhere in the world, with many or few resources, and I will stand by my principles. I know I could never see my family again (which is a devastating thought), but still make good decisions that aim to benefit humanity as a whole. Living in alignment with my principles is what home feels like to me now.
This is your first memoir. What did your writing process look like? Were you writing consistently, or did it come in waves? Did you sell a book proposal first? I’m in the midst of working on my memoir book proposal, so I’m very curious!
Oh wow! Congrats! Memoir writing is the most rewarding and also the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But. But! My sense of who I am and what I believe is so much stronger now than when I first started writing.
So, here is the whole, long story: I signed with my agent for a YA contemporary fiction novel about a young girl who grew up undocumented and in an abusive situation at home, but ultimately got her American citizenship. We sent that out to like 30 editors, and they all rejected it, but one editor said she would be interested in this idea if it were in the form of a memoir. I discussed this comment with my agent, who had already sold a few memoirs, and she encouraged me to develop a non-fiction proposal based on my life.
I actually got my bachelor’s in creative writing and was always interested in memoir writing, but had discounted writing my own because I didn’t think anyone would want to read a memoir by someone in her twenties. I thought I needed to live more life (I was wrong.) My agent said most people who sell memoirs nowadays have a strong social media presence, are famous, or are already known in the literary world. At that point, I had no social media presence. The idea of being on social media scared me, but my agent is an absolute angel and was really encouraging (and remains so!). She told me I had important things to say, which I did not really believe at the time. She even offered to pay for a publicist for me so I could start placing essays (the best advice I could give you, truly, is get a kick-ass agent).
So, I started writing essays, and while doing this, I dipped my toes into the world of TikTok. TikTok was easier for me than Instagram because I didn’t know anyone on TikTok, so I felt like I could experiment without being judged. I experimented, A LOT. I posted a lot of random stuff and hoped something would stick. After about six months of truly flailing, I realized I needed to approach my social media content as though every video I created was a chapter in my memoir. Also, I realized people go on social media because they need something. Advice, or they want to feel less lonely, or they want to feel like someone understands them.
If I wanted people to hear what I was saying, they needed to be able to take away something for themselves from my content. I started making videos informing people about mail-order brides, the situations that cause someone to want to leave their country in this way, and other things I experienced or had first-hand knowledge of. When I approached my content like this, I skyrocketed to over 40k followers.
This was the number that my agent and I agreed on to start the publisher submission process. We created a proposal over 40 pages long detailing what I wanted to include in my memoir. Honestly, my memoir in its current form is remarkably different from the original proposal that got me my publishing deal. If I could go back, I would tell myself to write one draft of my memoir before writing my proposal, because I truly did not know what I wanted to say until after my first draft.
After I got my publisher, my friend hooked me up with a critique group, and I started writing the first few chapters from my outline. My critique group helped me refine the tone and voice of the first chapters, and that’s when I started using my experience with EMDR to write, and things went much smoother after that. Having a critique group helped me catch issues early in the drafting process and improve my writing, because I could incorporate insights from feedback into future chapters as I wrote them rather than in retrospect. I pretty much only stuck to a schedule because I knew I needed to turn in my chapters every few weeks. Having 3–5 people give me feedback on my writing told me what was working and what wasn’t. If it weren’t for my critique group, I would not have been consistent at all, so I am deeply thankful to them.
You mentioned that your story evolved a lot from the proposal to the final draft. What did you initially think it was about?
I thought the story I was telling was an American coming-of-age story, but I was wrong. The political landscape of the United States shifted dramatically for me while I was writing, and I realized this was, first and foremost, an immigrant story.
Looking back, I’m not sure how I got it so wrong initially, but thank goodness for the magic in writing because the words that flowed from my fingertips told the immigrant story that was there all along. I also became much more aware of how writing was a political act, simply by describing my experiences. I think it’s impossible to write nonfiction without being political in some way, and I decided to change which memories I shared to respond to what was and is happening in the United States.
Tell us a bit more about your approach to building your platform as a writer and author. Do you think it ultimately helped you sell your book to a publisher?
When I make content, I want viewers/followers/readers to take something away for themselves from whatever I’ve created. The question I ask myself before I post anything is: What can my followers get from this post or video?
I found that social media platforms are visual mediums, so I have to add that dimension on top of my writing instincts, which was new and different for me. Despite that, typically my posts that do best usually tap into the same storytelling craft at the heart of being a writer or artist of any kind.
Without a doubt, building a platform was critical to selling my memoir to a publisher. The book landscape is evolving and facing all sorts of disruptions in the current era, but for authors, this means that much more time and energy must go into personally marketing their books than in previous decades. Most authors, especially debuting ones, should know they will be expected to market their work directly. Building a platform demonstrates understanding of your own brand, what makes it unique, who your audience is, and how to expand your reach.
I’m learning about all this now—the importance of having a platform and your ability to market and self-promote your work—and I’m finding it difficult! It’s hard enough to sit down and write every day; having to develop an Instagram strategy as well is daunting. But I know it’s the necessary evil of this adventure I’m on as an aspiring author! OK, moving on!
Memoir often sits in that uncomfortable space between personal truth and public consumption. How did you navigate the vulnerability of sharing your story with a wider audience?
I definitely curated which memories to share and which to keep to myself. My husband tells me all the time that my memoir doesn’t even show half of the absurd things that were happening. Vulnerability is important, especially now, but it’s also important to know you didn’t give your audience every bit of you. With that said, while writing, I interrogated many of the things that still make me feel shame, like the fact that I had lice for over two years, and I realized a lot of people could have that same shame, and if I shared these parts of my story maybe other people will realize they don’t have to feel ashamed for things that happened to them as a child.
For readers who see parts of themselves in your story, what do you hope they take away from your book?
I want anyone who reads this book to be brave. Even when it’s scary. Even when it’s hard and seems inescapable. It’s important to be fierce and brave and have the confidence to always keep going, keep fighting for a better life. I also hope anyone who reads this book comes away with a strong sense of conviction to protect children. If the adults in my life had more conviction and less fear, I think I could have been protected from a lot of things I experienced as a child.
No one deserves traumatic experiences in their lives, but children are especially vulnerable to abuse because they cannot protect themselves. We need adults in children’s lives to have the conviction that they can and should protect kids simply because it is the right thing to do.
Before we go, a few rapid-fire questions
What book do you recommend to everyone lately?
I can’t choose just one! Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls. Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang. Dirty Kitchen by Jill Damatac. Kin by Tayari Jones. Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson.
What show or movie are you binge-watching?
I am currently watching Love Island: Beyond the Villa and season 4 of Vanderpump Rules. There are about a million shows on my ledger that I need to get to, though. When I’m writing fiction, reality TV inspires me more than anything else.
What’s one sentence you wrote in Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter that still lingers with you?
I think about the line: “What was I supposed to be excited about?” a lot. This line refers to my reaction as a toddler when the man who “bought” my mother showed us his house. He wanted us to be really impressed by a tiny, kind of broken-down house. It’s a really simple line, but it’s so relevant all the time. So many products, services, and concepts are pushed on us as modern wonders when, in reality they do not truly improve the quality of our lives.
What are you working on these days (aside from promoting the launch of your book in September)?
I love this question! I’m working on a revenge fantasy thriller. I feel like the world needs a revenge fantasy where bad men get the consequences they deserve, since it’s not really happening in our world.
In one sentence, what did writing this memoir teach you about yourself that you didn’t expect?
I am proud of the child I was.
Pre-order Katya’s debut memoir, Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter wherever you buy your books! Pre-ordering books boosts first-week sales, helps authors get on bestseller lists, encourages retailers to stock more copies, and generates early marketing buzz. Let’s show Katya some love!
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions for me or Katya, drop them in the comments below.
See you soon,
Alexis
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Mera Magazine features weekly dispatches, essays, interviews, book recs, and more from Amsterdam-based writer Alexis Mera Damen. Subscribe to show your love and stay in the know!