Washington Square on air is the audio town square for the Washington Square Review, Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing. Hey there. This is Melissa Ford Luckin, editor for the Washington Square Review. I'm here today with Mareto and Radus, whose short story the Orphans is in our Summer 25 issue. Hey, guys.

Very excited to be with you and your listeners. Melissa.

Great. Well, thanks for showing up. Tell us a little bit about the story. Give us a little background about the characters and little brush of the plotline.

Okay, so the Orphans is a much loved story of ours that we wrote. We penned it two years ago, actually, so it's one of the first short stories that we, when we set out to write short stories. It's the story of a family of orphans, which is interesting in itself because they're a family and it records events, the events of during their escape. They're running away from war. They're running away from something that has been touched upon in the short story. There's the demon of war, which has been unleashed at that time. These are mytho historical events, and they're on the road, running away towards the Adriatic Sea where they will seek refuge. So much of the story, the central theme and the plot, revolves around the plight of people running away from something terrible. And it is probably not so loud, but to us it is very loud, with the suffering and the screams of people whose lives have been changed forever by events which are beyond their control. So it is very much a story about war, but it is also very much a story about hope and about people who support each other and people who find deeper meaning in the relationship between themselves.

And about the warriors who go to war to fight this old man, the old soldier, you say?

One of the things I admired about the story is the way you handled the emotion. And as a reader, to me, it came across, as you said, kind of both loud and not loud. And as a reader, I appreciated the way that the characters were given space to have their own emotions. And I didn't feel like their emotions were being kind of like pushed at me, which I think as a reader made it more emotionally impactful, which is kind of counterintuitive. Right. So there was more space for my emotion as I was reading the story.

So when we wrote this and we described the events and everything that's happening around them, much, much of it is hinted at, we also felt that it would be much more telling of the difficult time the they're Going through if things were not directly said and directly described. So, yeah, much of it unravels much of the story and the narrative unravels their. Their characters, their. Their emotions. And in a piecemeal fashion, so to say. So, yeah, we hope that the readers will piece together their story, reconstruct their story on their own, without us telling them what to feel, what to seek for.

Yeah, yeah, that completely matches my experience, what you just said, what inspired you to write it?

Well, I already said that it is loud with screams that are muffled, but, you know, we live in a very turbulent time, especially the last couple of years.

Contemporary events.

Contemporary events, yeah. But in the last couple of years, there was a storm brewing to the east, so to say was visible even then. Yeah, it was visible a couple of years ago. So we felt it. We believe that writers are harbingers, and we felt it and felt compelled to tell a story which unfortunately, reality brought to us because you must know that it's just 400km from here as the crow flies. Two events which are devastating and there is a lot of suffering right now where we live. And we just have to tell this story as a warning. We hoped that it would be a warning, but unfortunately. Unfortunately, it's. Yeah, it has come to life.

The Orphans is not our only story for these events or this about this team about war. We got.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Most of our stories are connected in some way to the big. To the big theme, which is war. And in fact, in the story, probably you've met a name which you don't recognize, which you don't recognize the name of Bestia, but it's symbolic of the demon of War. The demon of war that is loose. It's on the loose. And the story of Tripocles, the hero who's mentioned in the story as well, who's a mytho historical figure. And this counting rhyme, which is in the story makes reference to this Persona who's the main character in an unpublished manuscript that we have.

Oh, okay. I know that we talked about where you are physically right now before we were recording. So for people who are listening, let them know where you are.

Sofia, present day Sofia, Bulgaria. The European continent. Yeah.

Okay.

That's where we are.

Ancient Serdica.

That gives a lot more context for what we were saying a minute ago.

Yeah, it's in the orphan, in the orphans. The old name, the ancient name of Sofia is Serdica. It's there in the orphan. So much of what we write about geographically is rooted in real historical places. So we pay Special attention to populating stories with as much authenticity as possible so that people can relate not only to the characters, but to real events and history as it is.

Since there are two of you, I'm just curious about the process of getting the words on the page. Did one person do a first draft, or did you go back and forth? What's the actual, just practical matter of getting one story that comes from two people?

Well, we collaborate in funny ways, so we don't have designated roles in this creative process. So we contribute, I would say, equally. Of course, most of the translation is my work, but everything else. Everything else we do together, and it works out just fine. We especially grateful and very grateful to this partnership because it gives us, and each one of us, it gives us a more real feel of the worth of what we are writing, because each one of us is like a lithmus test for what the other one writes. And then we also go through a very interesting process, process of translating all this, because originally we write all these stories in Bulgarian, which is a completely different language. So we write these stories twice, so to speak, once in Bulgarian, once in English. And it's also another editing process, to a great extent. Yeah.

And in Tropocolis, we. We needed a very different narrative for the legends inside. From one side, the main narrat, and from the other side, narrative, like the original source, original legends. And they mix inside, but they have to sound different, like different voices.

How do you accomplish that?

How do we encourage that?

Explain this.

Well, it's very difficult to explain. Yeah. But I was. We were talking about Greek mythology just before we joined you. And it's interesting that our unpublished manuscript is written very much in the vein of the Argonautical adventures, the trials of Heracles and Homer and the Iliad. It's not priggish in any way, but we were talking about the fact that history and myth, when they blend. When they blend, they have the same powerful presence in the minds of people in the ancient times. So myth was on a par with history and they coexisted. So people believed in both as very real. So that's what we tried to achieve. But it's, of course, up to the readers to decide.

How would you define a myth?

Myth, it's bigger than reality in some way, so it enriches reality. It makes us more aware of time and presence. It makes us more aware of the present moment. And it really brings to the fore our attitudes to life, our attitudes to our loved ones, relationships and. Yeah, and it also invokes A kind of deeper sensuality, I would say, so that we can appreciate the time that we live in and do everything we can to make it better for everyone else.

It's a story from the ancient times.

Yeah.

Myth. That was the short answer. Don't see.

See how you do work well together.

This creates partnership. Works just like that. So someone is more valuable and someone just says things as they are.

Well, the reason that I asked is I was thinking about what you said right before I asked the question and just puzzling over the strangeness that something that a story from past times that's larger than life can help us decode and kind of process historical facts. Like, that's just weird. The blending. Yeah, the blending of the two of them together. Because if someone just gives you the myth, it's cool, but it doesn't really do anything for you. And if someone just gives you the historical facts, you know, some stuff, but you're not really feeling and processing it. So when you blend the two together, that's when the magic happens.

It's very challenging. Challenging for the readers because it makes you sit up and think. It makes you challenge what you already know. Or it provokes you. It triggers an interest into looking at historical facts from a different perspective, maybe. Also, we like to say that perhaps looking into the future depends very much on the clarity which you have towards past events. So people have to read about history and people have to ask the difficult questions and how we've come to this and what we are right now.

But this is history. This is kind of fiction. And we try to create something not pretending to be reality. Like in. We try to do this with our second novel. It's part of a whole cycle called Tiga Maga. It's in the fantasy genre. We pretend to create the different universe, the reversed values. Values.

Something like anti Utopia.

Yeah, this is very different thing, but is connected with the main theme of war. It's a universe based on war.

Okay, so he's making reference to the novel that we have contract for. It's coming out next year. So it's a very different genre. We like to think that it's an experiment. We'll see how successful it will be, of course. But it's a very different genre. And we had lots and lots of fun writing the first part. We are currently working on the second. But it's also about war. It's also about values. And probably to give you a feel of what it is like, perhaps the closest. The closest you. You can get to understanding what we are Talking about is because it's a very Orwellian world with inverted values. So it's. It is about war, but it's what everybody's seeking.

There is a book, no Time for Heroes from San Lunvao. I don't know if you know it.

I haven't heard of it. Are you recommending it?

Oh, yeah. This from 60s, I believe. This Scandinavian author, Sam Lundval. No Time for Heroes is in English, I believe.

Yeah. No Time for Heroes. So it's a. It's a narrative about a soldier in the future who's trying to run away from. From his commanders to hide somewhere and not be bothered about things because he sees the. The futility of.

Of everything's love with artificial intelligence. Supercomputer.

Oh, okay, okay, okay. But the gist of it is that war figures large in everything we write about. Our short stories, the novel that is upcoming. And this. This door that you opened in the orphans just opened it a little bit. It's a door into another world where also war is overwhelming people.

I want to back up a little bit and talk about how the two of you started working together creatively. How did that happen?

Well, we have known each other for a long time, so we have known each other from lower secondary school in Sofia. So we lived just a few blocks away from each other, and then we went to university and we followed our different paths, of course. I studied linguistics and he studied law. But it was a time when the Berlin Wall fell, and we lived the first part of our lives behind an iron curtain and in a literally an Orwellian world. So we were drunk on freedom and all kinds of freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of movement, which was something completely new to us. So we couldn't travel in other countries at that time. So we were very inspired by all of it, by the ideas and values of an emerging democracy. And we fought hard over the years to preserve it. So we started writing at university together. But, you know, it's the vicissitudes of life. So we went into. I went into the teaching profession. So I've been teaching English for 25 years. Don't say quarter of a century, please.

I'm in the same boat, so it's all right.

Yeah, yeah. And he. He went into law. But I think that this gave me a lot. It taught me a lot. Especially teaching students has given me so much context and it taught me patience, because for when you write, you need patience to see something, to have an idea, develop it, you know, gather the right tools that work in concert. So Teaching has definitely helped me develop ideas.

In fact, I think that tropocolis bring us together for writing. I got the idea, but I don't know how to finish it.

Yeah. So we finished it together.

We finished it together.

What happens when you can't finish it? It just doesn't move or it goes in too many directions. What happens?

I was stuck.

I was stuck.

He had writer's block. Yeah. I can't imagine how this happened.

I needed him to give me direction and sense of humor. There is a lot of humor there inside.

Yeah. Yeah.

But basically, I would like to think that this story is long in the making because it had to mature. So I believe that things happen when they happen, and that's the only way they can happen. So if this was the right time for us to get back together and finish writing it, then it was meant to be.

So you let me know how your background in teaching helps you write. How does your background in law come into your writing?

Oh, you can see a lot of lore inside our stories because this is a part of life, and we try to make this part of life inside our stories.

Okay. So pathology, law. Law and morality, deeply connected, of course, and regulating people's relationships and regulating people's attitudes. Law does that, and it helps us see things more objectively because subjectively, each one of us is carrying his own or her own grain of truth, you know, in everything we do. But objectively, we have to. It's something that we very much try to bring together in our novels and stories. We try to bring together very diverse points of view and not regulate them, but at least try to present truth from many different aspects of it so that people can experience diversity and accept it.

Yeah. Law helped me to ask the right questions. For example, what would you do when the war is on your doorstep? Would you go to fight for your family, for your country, for your neighbors, or you run? What would you do?

Right. There's consequences to both.

Yeah.

Right.

So you mentioned a manuscript that's part of a book that's coming out, that's part of a series. Is that correct?

Absolutely. Yeah. We're midway through the second part right now. The first one is coming out next year in August. Yeah.

Soul Book is solid Books.

Is the publisher an American publisher.

How is the process different creatively when you working on novel? Long size, you know, fiction versus short story, how do you think about that differently?

I guess that writing a short story is probably more demanding than writing a whole novel. I think it's more demanding because brevity and you have to select those elements which will keep reality together. You have to focus on that and you have to. Yeah, you have to anchor the story in some way sparingly without having the space to do so. So it's like constructing a dream that is tied with just a few strings because that's all the space can give you.

It sounds like what you're saying is there are more decisions to make, what to keep. Yeah, but with a novel you pretty much tell the whole story. Because with a short story you're not even. Often you're not even telling the whole story, you're only telling part of it.

Absolutely, absolutely, yes. So short story, and especially flash stories, we have one of these is just 300 words and there's so much you want to do in 300 words and you have to keep it latent for the reader to discover. It's very difficult. So stories are a real challenge and we're very happy to have most of our stories published now.

Yeah, that's great. I think with a short story the relationship with the reader is also different, what you're expecting. And there's more of an invitation for the reader to piece things together and to use their own imagination and interact with the short story.

Right.

That's just my two cents. But with a novel it's more. They're sitting back in their chair reading and absorbing it all. But with a short story they know they're going to participate a little more heavily.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. We actually started out with the full blown manuscript and we wrote 300 plus pages before we started writing short stories. And. Yeah, and it was, it was a, it was a challenge. It was a challenge. It gave us a different perspective on, on the writing that we do and it was certainly worth it.

That's great.

We're trying to make the reader to think about something, to ask questions, to search for something.

Yeah, yeah. I think that is the. The magic of fiction is inviting the reader to, you know, put themselves somewhere.

Else and probe deeper.

It reminds me of what we were talking about earlier, you know, history and myth coming together. It's just kind of a weird thing of life that if you put someone in a completely different space, it helps them think rather than, you know, just what their normal everyday reality is. So.

Absolutely, absolutely. We are so caught up in everything we do, everything we have to do. Responsibilities, duties, life in general. We rarely have time to break out of a rut and do something that is more meaningful and more provocative, ask the bigger questions because we believe there are bigger questions here for sure.

Part of the human experience. If people would like to find you online and keep up to date on your books as they come out, where can they find you?

We have a dedicated Facebook page called Eager Maga where we post new and upcoming events and talks with likes of you and every piece of news that is connected with our writings.

Yeah. All right, awesome. Well, I'll be sure to include the link in the show notes. So thank you. Thank you to you both for coming on and talking with me today.

Thank you, Melissa, and thank you to your listeners as well.

Thanks for stopping by the audio Town square of the Washington Square Review. Until next time, this has been the Washington Square on air from Lansing Community College. To find out more about our writers, community and literary journal, visit lcc. Edu wsl Writing is messy, but do it anyway. Sam.