You know the feeling. You've got a draft, or half a draft, or forty different opening paragraphs for the same essay, and a small army of people in your life who love you but are not going to give you a straight answer about your writing. Your partner says it's great. Your mom says it's great. Your group chat says it's great and then asks what you're doing this weekend.

What you actually need is someone who will talk it through with you, ask the right questions, and help you figure out what it's trying to become. That's writing coaching, and we're thrilled to say The Boundary now offers it, with Vasilina Orlova.

Wait, isn't Vasilina a therapist?

Yes. And this is not that.

Vasilina is a bilingual psychotherapist here at The Boundary, and she's also a writer, poet, and socio-cultural anthropologist. She has published books of prose and poetry in Russian, and poetry collections in English, with work appearing in leading Russian literary journals like Novy Mir, Oktyabr, and Druzhba Narodov. She's taught autofiction and novel writing at the Moscow School of Creative Writing, and she recently finished a draft of her first novel in English, which she's now revising. Her academic work has appeared in places like Slavic Review and the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. She has, in other words, spent a lot of time thinking about how ideas get made into sentences. You can read her full CV here.

Writing coaching pulls from that background, not her clinical one. It's a conversation about your ideas and the thinking behind them, not a therapy session that happens to involve a laptop. No diagnosis, no treatment plan, no insurance billing. Just a sharp thinking partner who knows what it's like to sit with a project that isn't there yet.

Writing across boundaries

Fittingly for someone coaching at a practice called The Boundary, Vasilina has spent her career working across them. Between languages, having published in both Russian and English. Between scholarship and literature, as an anthropologist who also writes fiction and poetry. Between life and the page, in her own autofiction. If your project is straddling one of those lines too, whether that's writing in a second language, turning research into something readable, or drawing fiction from your own life, she's made that crossing herself and knows the questions it raises.

What actually happens in a session

You bring questions, ideas, problems, and whatever stage the project is in, from a half-formed idea to a draft you're stuck inside. You talk it through, and you get real feedback, in real time, about where it's headed and what to do next.

This is not editing, and it is not reading. Vasilina isn't going to hand your essay back covered in track changes and comma corrections, and she isn't going to take your pages home and report back. She's going to talk with you about what the project is doing, what it could become, and what might be quietly holding it back. Think less red pen, more genuinely useful conversation with someone who has spent years writing, publishing, and teaching writing.

Sessions can cover fiction and poetry, memoir, autofiction, and personal essay, academic and scholarly writing, dissertations in the humanities and social sciences, and structuring an idea that hasn't found its shape yet. They can also cover the practical life of a project: planning your next step, developing a strategy for identifying venues that suit your work, and how to keep going after a rejection instead of putting the whole project in a drawer.

The logistics

Sessions are 45 minutes, held online, and available to writers anywhere in the world, throughout the week, including weekends. Vasilina has a limited number of openings at this time. The fee is $350 per session. Insurance doesn't come into it, because this isn't a clinical service.

Vasilina reviews each inquiry individually to make sure it's a good fit before booking anyone in, and openings are limited. Once you're in a session, you have her full attention on your work.

Frequency is up to you. Some writers come once a month and use the time in between to actually write. Others start weekly to build momentum, then space things out as the project finds its footing, or as it goes out into the world and starts having a life of its own.

How to start

Reach out to Vasilina at vassilina@gmail.com with a short note about your project and what you're hoping to get out of coaching. If it sounds like a fit, you'll sign a coaching agreement outlining the scope of the work, and then you're on the calendar.

If you've got a story, an essay, a dissertation in progress, or just an idea that won't leave you alone, this might be the conversation you've been missing.

FAQs

Is this therapy?
No. Writing coaching is a separate, non-clinical service. Vasilina is also a psychotherapist, but writing coaching sessions don't involve a diagnosis, aren't billed to insurance, and don't create a therapist-client relationship.

What's actually included in a session?
You bring questions, ideas, or a project at any stage. You talk it through and get real feedback in real time. It's a conversation about your ideas, structure, and next steps, not a review of your pages and not a line-by-line edit.

Will you read or edit my writing?
No. Vasilina doesn't read manuscripts or drafts, and she doesn't copyedit or proofread. Sessions are conversations about your ideas, your plan, and where to take the work next.

What kind of writing do you work with?
Fiction and poetry, memoir, autofiction, and personal essay, academic and scholarly writing, and dissertations in the humanities and social sciences, as well as early-stage ideas that haven't found their shape yet. Sessions can also cover the practical side: developing a strategy for identifying venues that suit your work and handling rejection without shelving the project.

Can you get me published?
Vasilina can't promise publication; no one honestly can. What she offers is clarity about your work, a concrete sense of your next step, and a thoughtful strategy for bringing the work into the world.

How much does it cost, and is it covered by insurance?
Sessions are $350 for 45 minutes. Insurance isn't accepted, since this is not a clinical service.

How often should I come?
Whatever supports the work. Some writers meet monthly and use the time between sessions to write independently. Others start weekly to build momentum, then space out as the project progresses.

How do I get started?
Reach out with a short note about your project and what you're looking for to Vasilina at vassilina@gmail.com. She will review inquiries individually to make sure it's a good fit before booking a first session.