MENTORSHIP RECIPIENT

Mentor Commentary:
Katie Strine

Recipient Reflection: 
Maria Odessky Rosen​

On "Chernushka" ​by Maria Odessky Rosen

by Katie Strine

I immediately appreciated the voice and humor of “Chernushka”. The commentary about being an American influenced by her parents’ Russian traditions, while pregnant and bringing forth another generation into the world, elicits layers of family, heritage and culture.

This piece stayed with me. The black cat, the father’s insistence, the way a mother protects her unborn child: little nuggets that worked so well in the first draft; it just needed a slight nudge, and I was pleased that Maria trusted me with her writing. 
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The original ending concludes with the line, “I smile remembering that story,” and I did too as a reader, yet I wanted a nod toward the future, given that we had heard the past and the present moments for Maria. In the moment, as a soon–to-be-mother on bedrest, what did she hope of these Russian traditions for her child? Or more into the future: Would she be the kind of mother to impress traditions upon her child, and what kind of traditions would those look like? Seeing the two laughing together in the grocery store in the final paragraph says it all. 

Katie Strine

Katie Strine is a fiction writer and educator. Her work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Necessary Fiction, Barely South Review and others. Once nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Katie has also been supported by The Kenyon Review. While new to the Editor-in-Chief role, she has formerly supported GSR as a reader and has volunteered with Electric Literature and Typehouse Literary Journal. Nothing compares, however, to working within the community that Literary Cleveland and GSR support and inspire.