On book titles: Why "Samizdat: A Love Letter"?

Hi dear readers, 

I wanted to share a bit about why I’ve chosen the title Samizdat: A Love Letter for my upcoming book. I seem to have a talent for choosing ambiguous book titles! My first book was called The Lemay Leveller (published by Completely Novel in 2015), and many people found that confusing. For me it was straight forward but I was at an advantage, being its author. Lemay is the name of the area of St. Louis that much of the story pivoted around, and a Leveller is a force that levels its surroundings. It was something that people understood after they read the book, but understandably it meant nothing to them at first glance. 

I feel that our modern publishing system has become overly formatted, such as the overused format, “The <noun> of <noun> “. I get it - it works because it gives us a solid idea of what it's offering, but this practice of shaping our written word to accommodate the market is intrinsically suppressive and stifling to both writer and reader. The state of our current publishing industry is pretty poor. There's a message sent that only an elite few can be real published authors, that work is only valid if a publishing house has taken 80% of the profits. I reject that idea and I want to encourage more people to do the same.

As a historian there’s nothing that thrills my soul more than finding first-hand sources. When I was in my teens, I haunted the public libraries of St. Louis and found many gems that I’ve referred back to since. One of those is the incredible book The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson: Written by Herself (1825). Now that’s a brilliant title! Not allowing the key word “memoir” to suffice, Harriette Wilson ensured that the world would forevermore know that she owned those words.

A crumb of context makes this delicious audaciousness even better. Harriette Wilson was a famous courtesan who was loved and abused by some of the most elite men in the 18th century aristocracy. When she aged out of her appeal and was abandoned to poverty she wrote her memoirs to earn her bread and butter. In a master stroke of brilliance Harriette offered the powerful men named in her book the chance to buy their anonymity before she published, and many of them did just that. However the Duke of Wellington famously replied to her blackmail letter with the words, “Publish and be damned." And so she did. For decades those long ago written words have made my heart beat faster.

Harriette was one of my first heroines. She was brave and bold and powerful. She began life as a powerless girl sold into prostitution but through sheer force of will she shook the foundations of the aristocracy that propped up a crown. And best of all, she did all of that by writing her own story and letting the cards fall where they may.

The history of the geographical land that was once Imperial Russia is one of my most intense special interests. My own Jewish family came from an area that is part of Ukraine, but it was part of Imperial Russia when my great grandfather and his family fled the brutal antisemitic pogroms. 

Writing this as I am in 2025 I’m acutely aware of the sensitivity of this subject, as the war in Ukraine rages on. For the purposes of this blog, I’m going to stick to the subject of language. 

The word samizdat emerged in the Russian language during the early years of Soviet rule. It means “self published” but not as we know the words today. In a land where people had always been strictly censored, samizdat was a grassroots dissident activity. With beautiful synchronicity to the earlier example of Harriette Wilson, the Russian poet Nikolay Glazkov coined a version of the term as a pun in the 1940’s when he typed copies of his poems and included the note Samsebyaizdat (Самсебяиздат, "Myself by Myself Publishers") on the front page. 

I knew I wanted my book to be called Samizdat before I realised I needed to add “A Love Letter” for it to be complete. That is for the simple reason that that’s exactly what my book is. It’s a love letter to specific people and to whomever ends up reading it. It’s a paper airplane aimed at you, carrying the message of samizdat. I want more of us humble folks to write our stories and ideas, not just on social media platforms that can disappear overnight, but in books that become gems for future generations to discover. I know how I needed books like that to lean upon in difficult times and I’d like to pay that comfort forward in the great human library.

Lastly, I prefer to write in my own first person voice and address you, the person reading, because you’re the reason I’m writing in the first place. It's caring for people that drives us to want to fight for better, so my book is a samizdat love letter. It’s all very cyclical!

I hope this has shed some light on what you can expect from my upcoming book. I have 65 pages left to edit and I’m doing it as fast as I can manage. When it is finished I hope you’ll read it. If you’d like to receive my monthly email newsletter with exclusive content please subscribe for free below. Your support is absolutely priceless to me and my morale as I leap these last hurdles and writing the book that means so much to me. 

Wishing you all the best, 

Erin