In November of 2022, the International Writing Program (IWP) gathered a dozen writers from Algeria, Kazakhstan, Mauritius, Myanmar, Poland, Ukraine, and the United States to explore the meaning of homes, homelands, and the borders between. Their collaboration, which was made possible by support from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, represented an alternative approach to the typical Lines & Spaces exchange, structured in this case as an international conference. After five days of discussion, exploration, learning, and writing, the participants returned to their homes to write the essays that would constitute both an online anthology and a record of their time and work together. 

Further details regarding the symposium and the participating writers are available in the International Conferences section of this website. The participating writers were Victoria Amelina (Ukraine), Salah Badis (Algeria), Krzysztof Hofmann (Poland), Irena Karpa (Ukraine), Roman Malynovsky (Ukraine), Shenaz Patel (Mauritius), Yuriy Serebriansky (Kazakhstan), ko ko thett (Myanmar/Finland), Kate Tsurkan (USA/Ukraine), Terry Tempest Williams (USA), David Woo (USA), and Lyuba Yakimchuk (Ukraine). IWP Director Christopher Merrill organized the conference with the support of Kate Tsurkan, Krzysztof Czyżewski, and IWP Editor Nataša Ďurovičová. The anthology was edited by Ďurovičová with editorial assistance from Ding Xu.