Irena Smith

Irena is the author of the award-winning memoir, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays and Troika: Three Generations, Three Days, and a Very American Road Trip. Her obsession with how words work began early (as a child growing up in Soviet Russia, she was known to occasionally stand on furniture and recite Pushkin poems), and her writing focuses on migration, memory, motherhood, generational expectations, the petty indignities of middle age, and the importance of embracing a broader, more generous vision of what it means to succeed. She writes two Substacks, Personal Statements and The Curmudgeon’s Guide to College Admissions, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, a rotating cast of children, and two cats who are working on resolving their differences. You can find her on Substack at https://substack.com/@irenasmith.