Each year, the Writing University conducts interviews with writers while they are in Iowa City participating in the International Writing Program's fall residency. We sit down with authors to ask about their work, their process and their descriptions of home. Today we are talking with Vlora KONUSHEVCI, poet, translator and essayist from Kosovo.

 

Vlora KONUSHEVCI (poet, translator, and essayist; Kosovo) is the author of the poetry collection Lavdi Vetes and the editor-translator of the bilingual anthologies Poetry Without Borders (Albanian–Serbian) and Magma (Albanian–English). Her poetry and translations appear in The Common, Songs of Eretz, and European Literature Network. A winner of multiple literary awards and a contributor to Kosovo’s cultural press, she also works as a certified translator for national and international institutions. Her participation is made possible thanks to the University of Iowa’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate College.

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1.    Do you have a plan or project in mind for your time at the residency?

I arrived in Iowa City just weeks after publishing my short story collection, Martesat, valixhet dhe ngarkesat e tjera (Marriages, Suitcases and Other Burdens). That book was my farewell gift to Kosovo before boarding the plane. I thought I was between projects, but as soon as I arrived, I realized America was a subject. I came to the IWP with no pressure to produce a specific project, which is its own kind of gift. That freedom has allowed me to return to my poetry collection, most of which is already written but now feels like it wants to carry a few American echoes. Fragments of this place are slowly working their way in.

At the same time, I’m drawn to nonfiction: essays or reflections on the cultural landscape of America as experienced by someone who is both watching and participating. This includes the quiet rituals of adaptation, code-switching, and the search for belonging in unexpected places, like the Deadwood bar. And somewhere in between, a little fiction may slip out too. I’m also continuing my translation work, which always reminds me that writing is, at its core, an act of listening, between people, between cultures, between languages.

2.    What does your daily practice look like for your writing? Do you have a certain time when you write? Any specific routine?

I don’t have a strict writing routine here, and I’m not trying to impose one. Back home, I usually write in the mornings, but I also take notes throughout the day, especially when something ordinary catches me off guard and hints at something deeper. I’m doing the same here. For example, when I boarded the plane from Chicago to Iowa, I noticed the shade of blue on the tails of the United Airlines planes. It was a specific blue, familiar, almost emotional. It reminded me of the blue in Kosovo’s flag. And then, suddenly, I was thinking about the American flag too, and how, somehow, we share this same blue. It struck me that I had never made that connection before. That’s how a lot of my writing begins: with a small detail that becomes a thread.

I often write in the mornings, and sometimes in the afternoon, depending on the day’s IWP schedule. I stay open to moments. A color, a sentence, a smell: any of these might begin a piece of writing. I write when something invites me to. The structure comes later.

3.    What are you currently reading right now? Are you reading for research or pleasure?

I’m reading for pleasure, mostly. A week ago, I was on my way to Deadwood, my favorite bar here, and the only place where I can smoke outside. Right across from it is Prairie Lights Bookstore. I told myself I’d just peek inside and not buy anything, since I finally have a library card. That plan lasted about five minutes. I ended up buying A Jury of Her Peers by Elaine Showalter, which is a sweeping critical study of American women writers. It opens with Susan Glaspell, an Iowan writer, and her play Trifles. Reading about her gave me a new kind of connection to this place. It felt like a literary coincidence that was meant to happen.

I also picked up The First Gentleman by Bill Clinton and James Patterson from city library’s used book section, a political thriller I couldn’t resist. I haven’t started it yet, but I like Patterson’s narrative energy. Clinton was president when Kosovo gained its freedom, so the book felt like an odd symbolic bridge between there and here.

I tend to turn to nonfiction when I’m abroad. It keeps me… grounded. But fiction, especially American fiction, helps me notice how much of a country is written into its imagination. I read to stay curious, to listen, and occasionally, to justify staying at Deadwood longer than planned.

4.    What is one thing the readers and writers of Iowa City should know about you and your work?

One thing I’d like readers and writers here to know is that I’m a writer who works from the small and ordinary, a suitcase, a cigarette, a glass of lemonade: objects that carry the weight of something larger. My stories and poems often begin with these everyday objects and open into themes of identity, exile, memory, and the search for belonging.

I try to resist the tragic tone because even in our hardest moments, there is humor. There is lightness. There is survival. When I write, I’m inviting readers to see how tenderness lives alongside history, and how literature becomes a space to hold both.

5.    Tell us a bit about where you are from - share some favorite details about your home.

I come from Kosovo, a small country with a complicated history and a stubborn joy for life. It’s a place where people argue fiercely about politics in the morning, then insist you come over for coffee in the afternoon. Hospitality is in our bloodstream. If you visit, you’ll be pulled into someone’s kitchen, fed until you can’t move, and then fed again. Kosovo lives in small rituals: three tiny coffees a day, the evening walk through the main square, weddings that last for days with music loud enough to shake the windows. It’s a country of layers. Ottoman mosques and Catholic cathedrals rise near modern glass towers. Slower-paced villages sit next to cities buzzing with energy and youth. 

One detail that often surprises people is how deeply pro-American Kosovo is. Polls have ranked us the most pro-American country in the world. In Prishtina, there’s a statue of Bill Clinton and one of Madeleine Albright, boulevards named after U.S. presidents, and an almost instinctive gratitude toward America for the role it played in our survival and independence. For us, that bond isn’t symbolic. It’s real. It’s emotional. It’s part of our national spirit.

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Thank you so much Vlora!