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Halyna Shevchenko
Old cobbled Lviv streets in light snow at blue hour

Second-language writer

Writing stories in a language I learned late

I’m Halyna. I write stories and essays in my second language, and a weekly letter about learning to write in it. I sell a word-list notebook, reading texts, a sentence workbook and two video courses.

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  1. A battered dictionary with sticky notes and a highlighter on a desk

    Why I keep a paper dictionary

    A battered book, a highlighter and the small pleasure of finding a word by hand.

  2. A night train window with a lamp reflection and a notebook

    Reading aloud to an empty room

    What changes when you hear your own writing in a voice that is not quite yours yet.

  3. An old tenement stairwell with iron railings and a ray of light

    Ten sentences a day for a month

    A plain habit, a cheap notebook and what thirty days of ten sentences did for my writing.

Letters in a Second Language

A letter every Friday: one word, one small story and one sentence to try writing.

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Downloads arrive by email as soon as you pay.

Olive notebook standing beside a fanned second notebook
Word-List NotebookPDF$9
Olive notebook standing beside a fanned second notebook

A printable notebook with a line for each new word, where you heard it, a sentence of your own and how it felt to say.

$9Buy: Word-List Notebook
Flat illustration of haystacks in a meadow at sunset
Short Reading Texts, Volume OnePDF$12
Flat illustration of haystacks in a meadow at sunset

Twelve short stories of about three hundred words each, with a glossary beside every text.

$12Buy: Short Reading Texts, Volume One
Snowy cobbled street at blue hour with a distant figure
Winter Reading TextsPDF$12
Snowy cobbled street at blue hour with a distant figure

Twelve short texts about snow, kitchens and long journeys, each with a glossary and two questions.

$12Buy: Winter Reading Texts
Open workbook with coloured blocks and highlighter on teal board
The Sentence WorkbookPDF$14
Open workbook with coloured blocks and highlighter on teal board

Sixty pages of exercises that build a sentence from three words, then five, then a whole paragraph.

$14Buy: The Sentence Workbook

Printed to order

Merch

My designs, printed to order and shipped by Printful.

A natural tee printed with two overlapping speech bubbles
Speech bubbles teeTee$28
A natural tee printed with two overlapping speech bubbles

A soft cotton tee, printed to order.

$28Buy: Speech bubbles tee
A white mug printed with a seedling in an ink bottle
Seedling inkwell mugMug$18
A white mug printed with a seedling in an ink bottle

An 11 oz glossy mug, dishwasher safe.

$18Buy: Seedling inkwell mug
A white hoodie printed with a pencil drawing a flower
Pencil flower hoodieHoodie$54
A white hoodie printed with a pencil drawing a flower

A heavy, warm hoodie, printed to order.

$54Buy: Pencil flower hoodie
A print printed with a bird flying from an open book
Bird book printPrint$30
A print printed with a bird flying from an open book

A matte print, 12 by 16 inches.

$30Buy: Bird book print
A battered dictionary with sticky notes and a highlighter on a desk

About me

I grew up speaking one language and learned the second one as an adult, from books, from neighbours and from a very old dictionary. For years I only read in it. Then one winter I wrote a short story, slowly and badly, and I have not stopped since.

Writing in a second language is slower, and it is also freer. I have fewer words, so every sentence has to earn its place, and the mistakes are often better than what I meant. My weekly letter is where I write down what I am learning about that, a word at a time.

What I sell is what I use myself: a notebook for new words, short texts to read slowly, a workbook for building sentences and two video courses. You do not need to be fluent. You only need to want to write something and give it time.

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Letters in a Second Language

A short letter every Friday: one word, one small story and one sentence to try writing in your own second language.

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