ABOUT Erma Odrach
I was born in Toronto, Canada. Alaska or Bust and Other Stories is my first work of fiction. The stories are all linked and based on my time spent in the Alaska/Yukon region, which forever holds a special place in my heart. The land is raw and beautiful and has a rich history – the Klondike Gold Rush, Russian colonization, Aboriginal peoples. As lives unfold, people discover love, defeat, victory, betrayal, desire; some quarrel amongst themselves, others fall in love, while still others set off into worlds of their own. Characters and events are all real or partly real. Alaska or Bust is set in a vast, unspoiled wilderness; it is set in the heart of the Last Frontier.
In Translation
My father was author Theodore Odrach and I have translated much of his work from Ukrainian into English. Stories have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Penguin Book of Christmas Stories, The Connecticut Review to mention a few. I received an honorable mention from the Translation Center at Columbia University for a collection of short stories. In 2008 my translation of Wave of Terror was published by Chicago Review Press: the novel details the horrors of living under Stalin’s regime in 1939, Eastern Europe.
I am working on my next novel (tentatively called Bank Street), highlighting the lives of people in a particular Toronto neighborhood. I live with my daughters Tanya and Claire along with dog Tippy and cat Babette in Canada.