Adriana Kantcheva

Catching Words

Hello, ,

It's only mid April, but I feel like I'm two months into it already. I've been busy, which makes time run weirdly in my head. It's been good busy, but I'm reaching the point where I'd like a holiday, please. I'll talk more about what I've been up to in a minute, but first, I'd like to introduce my website's new look (which also reflects a slight shift in this newsletter's aesthetics).

Catchingwords.com has a new skin

Image: a screenshot of catchingwords.com's front page, which is a collage with a forest in the background, multi-story buildings in the foreground and, in the very foreground, flowers and butterflies, some of which are purposefully misaligned.

The reason behind the change is that I've lately felt a sharpening of goals and themes I work with in my writing. This new awareness has brought a revelation that the way I hitherto presented myself online didn't reflect how I've grown over the years as a writer. Now, I feel my website is once again an appropriate extension of my writer identity.

The images on the front and contact pages are collages I created myself with elements from photographs I've taken over the years. These elements represent things that are important to me or whence I draw themes, such as my love of nature, my childhood in one of the many panel blocks in Sofia, and the contrasts and misalignments I often play with in my fiction.

Feel free to click around and let me know what you think.

What I’ve been up to

• Eastercon! (More on that below.)
• I've finished the second draft of a short story.
• I've finished the cold read of my secondary world novel project and have started a mini revision.
• I'm writing another short story.
• I'm prepping for an informal workshop with a group of fellow writers, where we exchange writing and help each other grow.

I went to Iridescence (Eastercon '26) in Birmingham

I live in a small village in the Black Forest Mountain, so, though I've already attended some in-person workshops and a few online conventions, I hadn't yet been to a con in person. That will definitely change after the positive experience from this year's Eastercon in the UK. Kind people took me, the con newbie, under their wing and introduced me to many wonderful attendees. Community is so important. I've promised myself to get out there more often from now on.

Eastercon was also a great opportunity to learn. I listened to Adrian Tschaikovski, Karen Lord, Anna Stephens, Juliet E. McKenna, and so many others at several amazing panels, which were a wealth of new perspectives and knowledge.

Last but not least, I participated in the book launch of Milford SF Writers' second anthology "Hidden Shadows," for which I and other Milford participants contributed stories. Sales of the anthology support Milford's bursary for writers of color so, please grab a copy at this link. The launch was super fun, and I got to read an excerpt from "Vedritsa of the River."

Image: Me (light brown hair, blue eyes, glasses, light green pullover) holding a copy of "Hidden Shadows" in front of a banner of Milford SF Writers.

The excerpt I read at the launch of "Hidden Shadows"

"Vedritsa of the River" is about a supernatural creature (rusalka) from Bulgarian and other Slavic folklore traditions. Rusalkas, resembling beautiful young women, are said to live in freshwater bodies (ponds, streams), where (traditionally) they lure young men and drown them. In my story, the rusalka Vedritsa is not interested only in men, and she's not wholly evil. In the following excerpt, she meets Vedra (there are reasons for their similar names), who is afraid of water.

Of course, Vedra didn’t wait for her sixtieth year to return to the river. I still remember how yearning and fear vied in her voice as she called for me a dozen paces from the water’s edge, her eyes scouring Kamchia’s dark pools—as dark as her long curls.

“Rusalka, show yourself!”

I lurked in the darkest pool under a willow, my hair floating around me in green swells, spying on Vedra through the transition between water and air. Twilight was settling, just like when I had saved her from drowning. But now, she was a maiden of twenty and as beguiling as I had predicted she’d become. She wore a simple shift that clung a little tight around her heavy thighs, her hair loose but for its braided ends.

“Won’t you show yourself?” she called again.

It’s not that I couldn’t emerge from my river. The Kamchia innervates the entire floodplain forest. I can walk for miles and not lose my connection to it. Once, long ago, I could even reach Mesembria, today’s Nesebar, and still survive.

No, what stopped me was doubt: I had never embraced a lover away from the tight cradle of a deep pool; I couldn’t imagine caressing Vedra with my bare hands rather than Kamchia’s currents. A part of me—an ancient part—hungered to conjoin with her sweet youth, to have my waters explore every nook of her body. What irony to now take the life I had earlier saved.

Tongues of river water surged forward, snaking over the bank towards Vedra’s sandaled feet. She yelped and retreated even further from the river, her shift catching in a bush.

Still, she didn’t run away.

“Rusalka, show yourself,” she called for the third time, and then, from the depth of my pool, I saw her grey eyes round as a thought struck her.

“Vedritsa, show yourself.”

The name… my name.

It pulled me out of the water like a fish on a line. I emerged, dripping duckweed as my clothing, damselflies like jewels on my wrists, navel, and a nipple, my green hair trailing behind me. I stopped short of exiting the river.

“Won’t you come into the water?” I said out of habit rather than sense.

Vedra’s leaden eyes roamed over my exposed flesh, yet she paled at my request. “I never enter water anymore.” She backed some more until the soft fronds of the willow above my pool embraced her shoulders. “But why don’t you come out, Vedritsa?”

My name again.

I stepped out of the river, my feet squelching in the velvety mud. “You should be afraid of me.”

“How about you be less scary?” Vedra’s frantic pulse roared in my ears. Yet, she didn’t retreat.

I stepped closer, then closer still. There, under the willow’s whispering shroud, I learned new ways to sate my passion and many ways to know another’s.

Reading and music

• Reading: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. This book is about a thousand worlds, belonging, and the search for home. January has never fitted properly into early 20th c. English society. One day, she discovers a book that might hold answers about her origin and points to ten thousand other worlds. This is by far the most heart-warming, gripping, and all-round wonderful portal fantasy I've recently read.

• Music: Have a listen to Geographer and the tender, melodic voice of the lead vocalist. Their style is ethereal; filled with feeling and a dream-like quality that makes one stop and listen.

A nugget of honesty

I tend to spend too much time in my writer cave. I'm the kind of person who's neither extrovert nor introvert, or perhaps both at alternating times. I don't mind staying at home for weeks on end, dreaming up stories. But being at Eastercon reminded me how much community matters; how uplifting it is to connect with others; and how much more balanced I feel after positive social interactions. I needed a week of solitude to recover from such a socially condensed weekend (so, yeah, definitely not a complete extrovert), but now I intend to get my butt to a convention at least once a year.

Until next time!

Adriana

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© 2026 Adriana Kantcheva | catchingwords.com