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The outbreak of a full-scale war affected all of us, leaving imprints in the lives of every Ukrainian and at the same time capturing a trace - the story of the experience we had at that time.

In the summer of 2022, writer Irena Karpa, in consultation with psychologist Larysa Voloshyna, launched an online course called Therapeutic Writing, where she helped participants talk through their pain and release emotions in their own stories. These classes proved to be useful and effective, so Irena continued to work in the field of creative therapeutic writing and founded the My Story course, during which she invited students to work on their experiences during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war. During the course, the participants wrote essays in which they shared their own stories or the stories of their loved ones, creating narratives based on real events. When she realised that these texts were worthy of attention, Irena Karpa came up with the idea: "to publish a collection of texts not by professional writers, but by 'ordinary heroines in extraordinary circumstances'."

This is how the collection of short fiction I Don't Know How to Write About It appeared. These are the stories of living through the Russian-Ukrainian war, which, artistically reinterpreted and embodied in stories and essays, sound diverse but are the voices of one common experience. "Talking, telling, consulting out loud with your own people is what keeps us going in the most difficult times," says Irena Karpa, "These stories are just that. The writer explains that therapeutic writing can be liberating: laughing, talking, recording emotions and events, venting anger and hatred, or love and gratitude, preserving the memory of those who are worth remembering. At the end of the collection, Irena Karpa suggests that readers also try to write down their own stories or just their thoughts. "Because who, if not you, is the main character in your life?" she says . "This collection is like a conversation that has its own movement: from thoughts about home - through feelings of confusion, questions and uncertainty - through decisions made and the search for resilience - through losses and pain and difficult experiences - through finding light in the darkness - through laughter through tears or laughter through humour - to finding ways to yourself and your recovery," Zhanna shares.

The collection includes works by the authors participating in Irena Karpa's writing course My Story: Anastasia Narolska, Anna Goldin, Anna Sedikh, Anna Sofina, Victoria Gerasymchuk, Victoria Klymok, Victoria Stepanenko, Halyna Chepurko, Hanna Pidlisna, Daryna Zerniy, Daria Solodovnyk, Iryna Shmyhelska, Karina Armlos, Kateryna Kompanenko, Kateryna Naumenko, Ksenia Yatsenko, Ksenia Lukianenko, Maryna Lazovik, Maria Karapata, Nadiia Badlo, Nataliia Krainiuk, Nataliia Remez, Nila Revchuk, Oksana Kravets, Oksana Levchuk, Oksana Tunikova, Olesia Filipenko, Olha Dmytrenko, Olha Saulenko, Polina Biliiaieva, Polina Voronova, Khrystyna Zhyvohlyad, Yara Mudra (Yaroslava Matveienko).