Studying Russian to Break the Ice

UNC alumna Lisa Dickey (Russian Language and Literature, ’88) will discuss the importance of language study as a means of facilitating cross-cultural communication — whether in times of peace or in times of strife. Dickey will share how her experiences studying Russian and traveling across Russia prepared her for her writing career and shaped her perspective on the country and its people.

Register here.

In 1988 Lisa Dickey moved to St. Petersburg in hopes of becoming a journalist. In 1995, she traveled across the whole of Russia writing for an early web travelogue, The Russian Chronicles. She then sold articles to The Moscow Times and USA Today, launching her writing career there before transitioning to book collaboration back in the United States.

Lisa Dickey is the author of Bears in the Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia, a book Madeleine Albright called “brilliant, real and readable,” and she has helped clients write more than 20 nonfiction books, including 10 New York Times Best Sellers. Her most recent collaborations include Where the Light Enters by First Lady Jill Biden and Every Day is a Gift by U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth. Other clients include the actors Patrick Swayze and Jane Lynch, musicians Herbie Hancock and Cissy Houston, California governor Gavin Newsom and Facebook whistleblower Chris Wylie.