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

SHORT STORIES

Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror - The Yolo Wallpaper (2025, reprint)

Witch Craft Magazine - The Yolo Wallpaper (2024)

Idle Ink - Hands Up Who Wants to Die (2023)

Nocturne Magazine - Wavetime! (2023)

ANMLY - Here Are The Ones That Went (2023, Best of the Net finalist)

Nonfiction

The New York Times - Thinking About Having a ‘Green’ Funeral? Here’s What to Know (2018)

Smithsonian Magazine - The Executioners Who Inherited Their Jobs (2018)

Mental Floss - The Mysterious Murder Case That's Captivated Iceland for Nearly 200 Years (2018)

Rolling Stone - Meet the Woman Teaching 'Financial Domination' to the Masses (2017)

The Cut - Why It’s So Hard for Doctors to Learn About Transgender Health Issues (2017)

The Cut - The Professionals Who Want to Help You Plan Your Death (2017)

The Atlantic - The Movement to Bury Pets Alongside People (2017)

Bloomberg - One Year After the Pulse Massacre, an Orlando Group Confronts LGBT Death Head-on (2017)

Atlas Obscura - Debunking the Myth of 19th-Century ‘Tear Catchers’ (2017)

Atlas Obscura - The Modern Movement to Exonerate a Notorious Medieval Serial Killer (2017)

Atlas Obscura - Clearing Up Some Myths About Victorian ‘Postmortem’ Photographs (2017)

The Washington Post - Workplaces Recognize Your Birthdays and Babies — but Why Not Non-Traditional Milestones? (2017)

JSTOR - When Societies Put Animals on Trial (2017)

Hyperallergic - Getting a Whiff of Perfume’s Illusions (2017)

Death & The Maiden - Bluebeard & the Final Girl: Feminist Retellings of Perrault’s Classic (2017)

Sabat Magazine - Baba Yaga: Decoding Russia’s Most Famous Witch (2017)

The Fanzine - Music I Have Travelled To (2016)

The Hairpin - Holiday Style Tips For Introverts (2014)

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