Yelena Akhtiorskaya

Yelena Akhtiorskaya is a writer best known for her debut novel *Panic in a Suitcase*, which follows a Ukrainian immigrant family in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. She was born in Odessa in 1985 and immigrated to Brooklyn at age 7; she later earned an MFA from Columbia University and has published in outlets including *n+1*, *The New Republic*, and *Electric Literature*.