A Chat With Contemporary Bulgarian-American Writer, Ellie Bozmarova

TELL US ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND AND WHERE YOU GREW UP.

I was born in Bulgaria in 1991 and moved to Southern California when I was 3. For the next 6 years, my family would move every few months around the U.S. To me, it was a fun adventure that warped my sense of belonging. It made me adaptable and sort of less rooted. It felt like we were wandering throughout the U.S.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO PURSUE A CAREER IN WRITING?

Writing has been a constant throughout my life, whether through free writes or poetry. It’s been a way for me to translate my emotions.

I have a very free writing style. I don’t believe in the blank page. I will rewrite and see what happens. The best scenes I’ve ever written were free writes. I just let myself go there.

WHAT LED YOU TO WRITE A MEMOIR?

After visiting Bulgaria for the first time as an adult, I was compelled to write about my family’s past. I’ve actively worked on this since I was 25 (for the past 5 years), and I just finished the 82,000-word memoir manuscript.

It's all about grit. I touch on emigrating to the U.S. from post-communist Bulgaria, Bulgaria’s history, culture-shock, my mother’s suicide, and my return to Bulgaria as an adult to make sense of the past.

If I find a good match for an agent, I hope to release the memoir before 2022. Right now, I’m in the revision stages. A selection from the memoir just won 1st place in a nonfiction contest hosted by the Women’s National Book Association - San Francisco Chapter.