Linda Strange
Strange Countries
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Language Learners of the World Unite

Language Learners of the World Unite

March 5, 2025 · by Linda Strange · in Russia, Ukraine, USA

There are many reasons why what occurred in the Oval Office of the White House last Friday was disturbing. These…

Things That Disappear

Things That Disappear

October 22, 2023 · by Linda Strange · in Finland, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Uncategorized, USA

The pale yellow “favorite blanket” that you had as a child. The hair dryer that covered your head like a…

Military Service? Impossible!

Military Service? Impossible!

November 12, 2022 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

When I taught English in Russia in the late 1990’s, my main place of employment was the Tolyatti Pedagogical Institute,…

Where We Come From

Where We Come From

June 25, 2017 · by Linda Strange · in Czechoslovakia, England, Germany, Hungary, Moravia, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, USA

A family history is a collection of stories, stories told and retold and made old not so much by the…

Persistence

Persistence

February 24, 2017 · by Linda Strange · in Germany, Russia, USA

In our elementary school, we start teaching children about character traits in the third grade. We teach them to recognize…

Where You Can Put Your Putin

Where You Can Put Your Putin

September 18, 2016 · by Linda Strange · in Russia, USA

No one could love Russia more than I do. You have to love a country where the cabbie taking you home…

The Tattered Hem of Winter

The Tattered Hem of Winter

March 17, 2015 · by Linda Strange · in Russia, USA

For me, there are three kinds of winters. The first kind is the rainy, gray, damp, but relatively mild winter…

Everything Old Is New Again

Everything Old Is New Again

December 13, 2014 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

The summer I traveled to Sweden nearly thirty-five years ago the national news there was full of reports of phantom…

November Anniversaries

November Anniversaries

November 11, 2014 · by Linda Strange · in England, Germany, Russia, USA

Americans, who tend to shun both the specific and the historical, are today celebrating Veteran’s Day in one great, glorious…

What Makes Them Do IT?

What Makes Them Do IT?

September 10, 2014 · by Linda Strange · in Russia, USA

When I was in high school, a friend of mine presented me with a copy of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake…

The Bitter Pill

The Bitter Pill

April 8, 2014 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

When I was a university student of Russian History in the mid 1980’s, the Iron Curtain was still drawn tightly…

Sevastapol

Sevastapol

March 9, 2014 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

I’ve always found that when I want to understand something that’s happening in Russia, it helps to hit the books….

The Sochi Saga

The Sochi Saga

January 30, 2014 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

You have to feel sorry for the Russian people. Or you don’t have to, not if you don’t want to,…

Road trips

Road trips

October 17, 2013 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

Crumbling provincial towns, the Gypsy wedding of a fourteen year old, the dismal condition of the M10 which connects Petersburg…

Remember Gorbachev?

Remember Gorbachev?

March 11, 2013 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

I was reading an article about Gorbachev the other day. Gorbachev, remember him? I’m embarrassed to say that until I…

First Aid

First Aid

October 3, 2012 · by Linda Strange · in Russia, USA

On September 18th, the US government announced that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), after two decades of…

The Russian Orthodox Church – It’s a Riot!

The Russian Orthodox Church – It’s a Riot!

August 22, 2012 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

Let me be very clear, I agree with Madonna, Paul McCartney and Stephen Fry that the three members of the…

Independence Days

Independence Days

July 4, 2012 · by Linda Strange · in Finland, Russia, Sweden, USA

Countries really don’t leave each other alone, do they? They are always bothering each other, invading, claiming sovereignty, imposing annoying…

Russian Reformers Old and New

Russian Reformers Old and New

June 20, 2012 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

The demands of the Russian reformers seemed reasonable enough to me. They wanted the Russian government to stop being so…

Putin Party Politics

Putin Party Politics

April 29, 2012 · by Linda Strange · in Russia

Why did Putin win the Russian elections? He won due to election fraud. Well, yes, there was election fraud, buses…

Author

Portrait photo of Linda Strange

All countries are strange, none stranger than your own.

December 2024
It is with great pleasure that I announce that my essay Navalny, Poetry, and Truth has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Pangyrus Literary Magazine. Should you wish to read or reread my essay, click here. If you would like to see all six of Pangyrus’s Pushcart Prize Nominations, click here.
October/November 2024
One of the short stories in my Island Girl series, Graduation Day, has been published in the 2024 Connecticut Literary Anthology in conjunction with Woodhall Press. Unfortunately, there is no online link to the story, but if you would like to hear me reading excerpts from my story, you can RSVP here for the online reading on Wednesday November 13th at 6:30 pm.
April 2024
Check out my essay about the tragic death of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and the repression of independent voices in present day Russia that increasingly mirrors the repression of the Stalin dictatorship. You can read it in Pangyrus Literary Magazine.
Check out my latest short story Island Girls in Marrow Magazine about young girls of color growing up in a neighborhood that isn’t particularly kind to them.
January 2023
I am delighted to announce that Glass Mountain Literary Magazine has published my short story Retention in their current issue. You can read the story here.
September 2022
Watch a video of me reading a live version of a blog about the Berlin Wall, The Wall I Knew.
July 2022
Watch a video of me reading a live version of my blog, The Last of the Best.
May 2022
I’m excited to announce three pieces of my writing have recently been published. What Ever Happened to Igor, an essay in Pangyrus, is about a study trip I took to Ukraine in 1985 with a group of Finns and Swedes. Igor was a young Ukrainian-Swedish man from Stockholm who was going to meet his father in Kyiv, a father he hadn’t seen in twenty years. Want to watch a video of me reading the essay? Click here. Will They Make it Home Again?, another essay in Pangyrus, explores the relationship between the images of World War Two childhood evacuations recorded in select works of European literature and the images of evacuation we now see on our television screens from Ukraine. Click here to watch the video.
Finally, The Longest Day, is a short story published in the 2022 Freshwater Literary Journal. It details the experience of a young non-English speaking Cape Verdean girl, Gee, on her first day in an American inner-city school. It is an account of Gee’s first encounter with her new ESL teacher and the safe space this teacher creates for Gee to express her true emotions. Watch a You Tube video of me speaking with Georbina DaRosa, the real-life inspiration for my story.

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