Ira Yarmolenko

What Time Devours is dedicated, in part, to the memory of Ira Yarmolenko, a student at the school where I teach who was murdered in May of 2008. I directed Ira in a campus production the previous year and though I did not know her particularly well, I was powerfully affected by her death, as were all the people who knew her. She was a gifted, open, generous, and positive person and my heart goes out to her family. As I said at her memorial, she was the kind of person who seemed to refract light onto those around her.

My story is not hers, of course, but the novel’s core concerns with loss and mortality seemed appropriate, so I approached her family about the dedication and they liked the idea. Ira was a talented poet and performance artist; the line of poetry about the snowflake in the dedication is one of hers.

Clicking on the image below will take you to a site set up by her brother, Pavel, which is dedicated to her life and memory.