Nine writers – a secret: how did the presentation of the novel “Nine Lives of October” go?

On October 9, the Moscow Book House hosted the presentation of the novel “Nine Lives of October”, created as part of the joint project “VKontakte” and “Eksmo” – “Literary Puzzle”. Two authors worked on the book: Elena Almalibre, Liliya Gorskaya, Svetlana Levkina, Alex O, Anton Nosov, Zhenya Ozernaya, Irina Suntsova, Zero Form (Anfisa Sudakova) and Nika Chesova. Writer Konstantin Obraztsov acted as a mentor and author of the project idea.

The event was very important for all the writers because each of them was chosen from hundreds of participants. Therefore, many people were so satisfied with the project that they felt responsible and worried; this was evident from their slightly trembling voice. Despite this, the writers behaved with dignity, communicated with each other and answered questions from the audience. As part of the presentation, the participants discussed the collective format of working on the text together with Konstantin Obraztsov, talked about the characters of the book and, by the way, the process of creating the work in a record time of six weeks.

“I have these words on the cover of the book: “A unique novel the likes of which you have never read.” This is the honest truth! There were over three hundred applications for participation in the project, there was a longlist of about a hundred people, after which I created my own personal shortlist of about thirty people. And in the end, it was these nine people who did the incredible. As far as I remember now, at the first meeting I told them: “The message must be delivered tomorrow.” Not an idea, not a summary, not a structure, but a text. And the very next day they started creating it,” he said. His teacher is writer Konstantin Obraztsov.

All nine authors shared how the book’s creation process progressed. Spoiler: It was difficult and unusual, but that made it even more exciting. “For me, this project is a particular challenge, because before this I created only poetry. If it were not for the “Literary Puzzle”, I would never have tried myself in a new genre,” admitted a member of the writer’s collective Zero Form (Anfisa Sudakova). “We created a nurturing, positive environment, despite arguments over stories. And this is an important component of success,” said Svetlana Levkina.

Interesting fact: the novel “The Nine Lives of October” was created entirely on the social networking site “VKontakte” – the authors met there and held six online meetings to discuss the story and characters. Meanwhile, “The Nine Lives of October” is currently on sale on online and offline platforms.

Source: People Talk