About the Author

Hello, I'm Raisa Marika Stohyn, usually known as Raisa or Reisa Stone in North America. I live in Victoria BC, and love giving storytelling performances and book readings.

My singing voice has earned scholarships from the the New York City Opera and Banff Centre (jazz) and two from Centrum Foundation for the Arts (American Roots). Other Arts awards: Manitoba Arts Council grant, the George Balcan Bursary for Painting and Drawing, and acceptance into Canada Council for the Arts Public Lending Rights program. I belong to Access Copyright.

I've spent a lifetime collecting stories and recipes from European refugees and immigrants. As I live in the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world, Canada, I'm immersed in our culture. I am grateful to live on stolen Lekwungen land; I will be forever homeless due to ongoing Russian genocide. 

I ate pureed borshch as baby food and cut varenyky dough (perogies) with a drinking glass in toddlerhood. My narrator, Baba, is a composite of the personalities who fed me and told outrageous and heart wrenching stories of the Soviet, Nazi and immigrant experience.

For Ukrainians, a meaningful life is focused on hospitality and the Arts. We express ourselves largely through physical acts of nurturing, pleasure and creativity.

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress chose Baba's Kitchen for their grand prize package to commemorate the 125th anniversary of settlement. Canada Council for the Arts has designated me as a national artist in 5 categories, and I am proud and grateful to be the recipient of a  grant to produce a series of Digital Originals. You can see my videos here.

As a singer and actor, I was mentored by Ralph Cole (The Nylons). I've trained Canada's first service rabbit, my street-rescued Boryslav: "short, godlike wolf."

I also bring to this book my background as a professional storyteller/actor/singer, instructor for Victoria School of Writing, business features writer for The Winnipeg Gazette, and humour columnist for Women in Music.

My poem "The Horsewoman of Chornobyl" was chosen by national Ukrainian magazine Nasha Doroha to commemorate the anniversary of this disaster, yet another of Russia's genocidal strategies against us. It is included in Baba's Kitchen. 

Baba's Kitchen: Ukrainian Soul Food was born as series of performance monologues, that underwent a unique live editing process:

I asked for audience feedback at Vancouver Poetry Slam, the Shadbolt Centre, Organic Islands Festival, Puente Theatre and various storytelling societies. The latter's director, Lina de Guevara, mentored my storytelling.

I also have performance credits from: Bravo TV, CBC National, Victoria Shakespeare Society and SOCAN/ASCAP. I am a former member of the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir, and have twice been a guest singer with the New Orleans Dirty Dozen and the Harlem Gospel Choir. For the latter, I was the guest duet partner for Artistic Director Eric Dozier's debut album. 

I love performing the stories from Baba's Kitchen, as much as I enjoyed writing it. Performance reviews are on the same page as book reviews. I perform at libraries (including at a special event in coordination with the University of Alberta's Ukrainian studies department), cultural centres, theatres, festivals and service clubs/non profits, including the Victoria Film Commission. As an an avid environmentalist and Land Claims ally, I've volunteered with United Native Nations, with whom I worked in solidarity with the Mohawk Resistance, was on the front lines at the Lil'Wat stand off and privileged to introduce David Suzuki at Tsleil-Waututh long house. I led the campaign to save a small urban forest in Fernwood, and hold the national record for petitions to stop the barbaric practice of horse slaughter. I persuaded my MP to table this in the House of Commons. 

You will find my reviews here.

My other passions are dancing, drawing and animals. I am Ukrainian.