Joint Journey to a Fictional World

Creation of this anthology was a collective effort. This class has drawn the students closer together; they have become not only friends but soul mates. This project has also enabled each of the students to discover their unexpected talents, which will stay with them well beyond the Joint BAE Program at HSE-NES.

Course instructor: Sharon Hannigan, PhD

Ackhowledgments:

It was Sharon who had the idea of publishing this anthology as a final project of the Modern Short Stories course. Then, by reading masterful classic short stories,many of us were introduced to a new world of short fiction that until then had largely gone unnoticed by us. To the extent that the format of the course allowed, we received cultural influence that some of us lacked and that we all needed to write our stories in a foreign language. We further improved our writing and imagination by way of reflecting on the artistic texts, carefully selected by Sharon, and formulating our thoughts in written form...

...Once more, great thanks to Sharon! We had been given complete freedom to write whatever stories in English we wanted – however long – but, without her help, they would not have become truly English. Her input helped us make them understandable to others, and it is this most basic quality that makes a piece of writing valuable. 

Special thanks go to Viktoria Zimina for her organizational role in finding and negotiating with a great print

shop where our project could come to fruition. We also sincerely thank Tatyana Rafikova for playing the important role of organizing the group photos. Special thanks go to Alexandra Chuguevskaya for the brilliant designs with which she has adorned these pages. Danil Grishin came up with a great foreword, and we thank him for his wonderful job. Mistakes would definitely have spoiled the impression of our anthology if it had not been for Anton Tolmachev’s expert proofreading. Special thanks for designing the brilliant front cover, back cover and spine go to Mikhail Rubinovskiy and Innokentiy Genokhov. We are very thankful to Elizaveta Belova, who created the preface and played a major role in the front cover design. Arseny Korovko wrote a magnificent acknowledgment; to him we extend our heartfelt thanks. Nor can we close these remarks without a word of praise to our LaTeX master, Konstantin Butich, who coded the entire anthology and played a significant organizational role in this project.

A word or two as to our title seems necessary. We decided to call our stories Joint Journey to a Fictional World because we met each other at the Joint Higher School of Economics - New Economic School B.A.E. Program. The part, Journey to a Fictional World, is a direct reference to the symbolic Road that each of us has traveled throughout the course. This Road was hard and sometimes even exhausting yet fascinating. In the end, we looked back and have understood that this Road was but a little path to a Fictional World, and our Journey has only just begun. . .

Enjoy the book! 

By having the publication on web the authors of the stories do not authorize any third party for reproduction, altering or copying entire work or parts of it. This work is for personal use only.