Nina Chayka is a Russian-American writer and a refugee. She is the author of Seagulls (Black Lawrence Press, Simon & Schuster, 2026), a collection of linked stories that draws on interviews the author collected from Ukrainians and Russians whose lives were shattered by the war, and on her own experience as a member of a Muslim minority in Russia—including her escape from harassment and threats from the Russian government, and her eventual exile in the United States. She holds a B.A. from Harvard and is currently living in Brooklyn.