Sonya Vatomsky

hello, hello

Sonya Vatomsky is a writer living in Manchester, England.

Sonya was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where they studied Linguistics and Finnish at the University of Washington. They are the author of poetry collection SALT IS FOR CURING and two poetry chapbooks; their nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Smithsonian Magazine.

2025 selected Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror
2024 shortlisted PFD Queer Fiction Prize
2024 finalist Best of the Net Anthology

Agent Judith Murray at Greene & Heaton

Photo Seanen Middleton

UNDER A FUR COAT

PRE-ORDER

Vivienne, a photographer from Manchester, arrives at a boarding house on a tiny Finnish island hoping to rekindle her creativity and heal her broken heart. Instead, she misses her wife. Her camera hangs at her side unused. And her fellow guests keep inviting her into the forest.

Vivienne quickly grows close with Ilya, the affable caretaker, and Gagarin, a rebellious mycologist. And when Gagarin confesses she's searching for a mythical bracket fungus - the Bigfoot of mushrooms - Vivienne throws herself headfirst into the cause.

The days pass in a blur of snow and birch trees and vodka. Yet the longer Vivienne spends in the forest, the more it consumes her. Haunted by lost time, inexplicable acts of violence, and rising tensions among the guests, Vivienne begins to suspect there's something darker behind Gagarin's determination. Because ambition always requires sacrifice. She's just not sure whose...

short fiction

Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror - The Yolo Wallpaper (reprint)

Witch Craft Magazine - The Yolo Wallpaper

Idle Ink - Hands Up Who Wants to Die

Nocturne Magazine - Wavetime!

ANMLY - Here Are The Ones That Went (Best of the Net finalist)

Nonfiction

The New York Times - Thinking About Having a ‘Green’ Funeral? Here’s What to Know

Smithsonian Magazine - The Executioners Who Inherited Their Jobs

Mental Floss - The Mysterious Murder Case That's Captivated Iceland for Nearly 200 Years

Rolling Stone - Meet the Woman Teaching 'Financial Domination' to the Masses

The Cut - Why It’s So Hard for Doctors to Learn About Transgender Health Issues

The Cut - The Professionals Who Want to Help You Plan Your Death

The Atlantic - The Movement to Bury Pets Alongside People

Bloomberg - One Year After the Pulse Massacre, an Orlando Group Confronts LGBT Death Head-on

Atlas Obscura - Debunking the Myth of 19th-Century ‘Tear Catchers’

Atlas Obscura - The Modern Movement to Exonerate a Notorious Medieval Serial Killer

Atlas Obscura - Clearing Up Some Myths About Victorian ‘Postmortem’ Photographs

The Washington Post - Workplaces Recognize Your Birthdays and Babies — but Why Not Non-Traditional Milestones?

JSTOR - When Societies Put Animals on Trial (Best Stories of 2017 pick)

Hyperallergic - Getting a Whiff of Perfume’s Illusions

Death & The Maiden - Bluebeard & the Final Girl: Feminist Retellings of Perrault’s Classic

Sabat Magazine - Baba Yaga: Decoding Russia’s Most Famous Witch

The Fanzine - Music I Have Travelled To

The Hairpin - Holiday Style Tips For Introverts

SALT IS FOR CURING

SALT IS FOR CURING is a poetry collection that examines trauma and survival through the lenses of folklore, ritual, and language. Originally published in 2015 by Sator Press, it is now available from the award-winning independent press Two Dollar Radio.

Poems from SALT IS FOR CURING have been taught in schools and universities, included in anthologies, and translated into multiple languages.

An SPD Books Poetry Bestseller // Dennis Cooper’s 23 Favorite Poetry Books of 2015 // Semifinalist for the YesYes Books Pamet River Prize // Entropy Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2015

Get SALT IS FOR CURING:

“Curious, intricate poems.”

— Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist

“Like the most enduring rituals, Vatomsky’s poems both intoxicate and ward.”

— Ken Baumann, Sator Press

“Sonya Vatomsky's SALT IS FOR CURING is many things: a feast, a grimoire, a fairy tale world, the real world. It's also too smart for bullshit and too graceful to be mean about the bullshit: a marvelous debut. I love it.”

— Ariana Reines, author of Mercury

“Imagine bodies within bodies eating a feast, spilling over with their own secrets and hopes and dreams and fears and brutality and witchery. That is the party you will find in this book—a modern-day, literary equivalent of a Bosch painting.”

— Juliet Escoria, author of Black Cloud

“These poems melt the hard fat of life into tallow candles, then they reach up and light themselves.”

— Mike Young, author of Sprezzatura

“Vatomsky’s poems are a series of beautiful sucker punches. Be warned: you won’t catch your breath until the very end. This is the sort of book that demands being read in one sitting.”

— Mary B. Sellers

“They say only poets read poetry, but I would be remiss if I didn't recommend this to readers everywhere … My passion for this art form has been reignited.”

— The Belfry Network

POETRY CHAPBOOKS

AND THE WHALE

Paper Nautilus, 2020

One of Dennis Cooper’s Favorite Books of 2021 // Winner of the 2019 Paper Nautilus Vella Chapbook Contest // Shortlisted for the 2019 Coast|noCOAST open reading period

“A lyrical, haunted shipwreck of a book you won’t soon forget.”

— amanda lovelace, author of the princess saves herself in this one

“Vatomsky is a poet with history, which is to say a poet with a Russian soul that never rests.”

— Gala Mukomolova, author of Without Protection

MY HEART IN ASPIC

Porkbelly Press, 2015

“This is a book of sensory-rich poetry investigating the body, decay/fracture, rich marrow, salted flesh, and breathing in all the dark things. This is precisely the kind of work we were looking for when we talked about finding the pieces that capture sage smoke in the eaves. It hooks you from the epigraph quote (Marina Tsvetaeva) and serves up a multi-course meal of, as one reviewer suggests, the playful & grotesque.”

— Nicci Mechler, Porkbelly Press

“This is all of the pretty in all of the not pretty. It’s the heart as a literal heart. It’s biting and it knows what it’s doing and it’s not going to compromise. It’s going to make you heart it. Spooky and gross in the best way.”

— The Fem Lit Magazine