My name is Maya Kucherskaya, and I am a writer, philologist, and tenured professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, where I head the full-time program “Creative Writing.”

Throughout the years, I have devoted myself to teaching literary history and craftsmanship courses. It so happened that I obtained my doctorate from two universities, one in Los Angeles and another in Moscow. My Moscow dissertation explored the poetics of the 19th-century Christmas story, while the Los Angeles one delved into the cultural significance of the Russian myth of the ideal ruler. As such, I am a Ph.D. holder in two distinct fields.

My recent research has focused on two authors from different eras, Nikolay Leskov and Joseph Brodsky. I have penned an extensive monograph on Leskov, which earned a literary award.

Additionally, I am fascinated by the history of the development of creative writing as an academic discipline, exploring how creative writing courses have become ubiquitous in English-speaking universities and gained such widespread popularity.

I have written ten books, including novels, collections of short stories and essays, as well as two biographies.