WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL CORNER OF CHAOS, MEMORY, AND TRUTH
About Lana Stasek
Ukrainian-born. American by grit.
Writer by necessity.
Lana came to the U.S. with two kids —
and zero English.
She built a life. Built a business.
And in 2024, she began writing.
Not for fame. But to remember.
To reclaim what silence and sacrifice had erased in the women before her.
Dementia runs in her family like a slow fade. She writes to stop the fading.
Her memoirs — Voices Within: Family Chronicles and Life Before and After — trace not only her own story, but the echo of generations.
She writes to uncover what’s
inherited and what’s chosen.
What binds us — through family,
trauma, love, silence.
And what it takes to break the old patterns.
In every scene: psychology.
Between the lines: philosophy.
Underneath it all: something ancestral.
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New Story is on the horizon!
Bella: Beyond the Bark
Yes, this is a book about a dog. But not only.
Bella spent eight years living “temporarily” — shelters, cages, strangers’ hands. And then five years living for real — with us, in a home where she was no longer called “former.”
I only knew her story from the moment she came to us. Everything before that I could only guess from her eyes, her scars, her survival habits. That’s why her “voice” in this book is a choice, not a fantasy. It’s a way to shape what I witnessed, what I felt standing beside her.
This is a book for teens 15+ and for adults who have ever felt “out of place.”
It doesn’t hand you a moral, but it leaves a mark.
It isn’t a sentimental “pet memoir.”
It’s a mirror. And maybe, in it, you’ll recognize yourself.
"True humanity reveals itself in how we treat those who depend on us. Bella: Beyond the Bark is a journey of compassion and love. A dog’s soul is the purest, her loyalty the strongest, and her truth—the kind that won’t let us betray the human within ourselves."
Pre-publication review by Margarita Palshina,
writer, journalist, and laureate of Russian and international literary awards.
Voices on Voices
⭐ English Version (Press-Ready)
Release of Lana Stasek’s Book Series “Voices Within”
Originally published by NewsMind (Russia) — an online cultural
media outlet covering literature, arts, and society.
06 November 2025
The book series “Voices Within” by Lana Stasek began with a sharp, almost urgent desire to understand her own lineage — to revive a family tree that had been reduced to cold lists of names and dates.
“When I started putting it all together, I hit a wall of coldness. Lists. Dates. Who married whom. Who died when. It felt dead — like reading epitaphs without faces. If I were a great-granddaughter discovering this document, I would be bored. I wanted voices, not tables. Not just ‘born — married — died,’ but lived. Thought, chose, failed, loved, hated, hoped. There must be life behind the lines,” the author says of how her first book, Family Chronicles, was born. What was meant to be a single memoir quickly grew into a series — because memory rarely arrives at once. It comes in waves, with character, and often with dark humor.
Voices Within is built not on fictional stories but on the real lives of real people — relatives, friends, and fleeting passersby, “all those who left an imprint on my life — from a trace of dust to a burn.”
Originally from Ukraine, Lana Stasek has lived in the United States since 2006. She became an American — by passport and by stubbornness. She arrived with two children and not a single word of English. She studied, built a life, built a business. In 2024, she began writing — not for fame, but to preserve what women in her family had lost for generations: their voice and their memory. First to silence. Then to oblivion. Her writing is direct, sharp, and at times darkly funny in that familiar “if you don’t laugh, you’ll scream” style. Her stories are for those who have fallen, stayed quiet, lost — and still managed to rise. Because there was no choice. Because living means remembering.
Stasek’s books are not traditional prose; they are autofiction — a first-person narrative of a woman who chose not to stay silent. Family patterns and lineage are refracted through emotion, fate, choice, and character.
Her second book, Life Before and After, is not a success story and not a tale of magical transformation. It is the voice of a woman who went through everything — and didn’t lose her sense of humor. From Ukraine to America. One husband defined by control; another by respect and warmth. And in between — her own path. The book draws a line between “before” and “after.”
“Before is when you grit your teeth so you don’t lose your mind next to someone who is physically there, but next to whom you are gone. After is waking up without needing to pretend or defend. It’s the normalcy I once thought was a fairy tale.
Before is fear. Pain. A deafness toward yourself — that half-frozen state where you feel something important is lost, but you don’t know what.
After is realizing the soul is eternal. Family is not a passport entry. It’s a living thread breathing through you. You are not a broken line. Not an accident. You’re the continuation. The voice of those who came before — and responsible for what comes after.”
Stasek’s books are vivid and unforgettable. They do not offer lengthy philosophical treatises, but they do show what trauma looks like in real life — not theory. How to hold yourself together when you hold everyone else. How to live when there is a whole chorus of voices inside you, each screaming its own truth.
Her stories are not about victory, but about survival — with style. The books are an attempt to break a generational pattern and preserve oneself. Not just to pass on genes, but to leave a trace. For readers unafraid to face themselves without filters. For those tired of polished stories where everyone learns neat lessons and forgives.
Stasek often references Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius, which she rereads regularly: “He speaks directly. Without husk. One of his reminders: ‘If many people like you, consider whether you have become too convenient.’ And also: ‘Everything, Lucilius, is borrowed. Only time is ours.’ My time is for those who hear. Those who don’t demand softening. Those unafraid of truth.”
Both books in the Voices Within series are available in print, digital, and audiobook formats.
