“The more women we gather around books, the better.”

Creative Women Publishing is more than a publishing house - it is a movement. It was founded by seven Ukrainian women who are breaking taboos with their books, strengthening voices and creating a new reading community. They were honoured with the Frankfurter Buchmesse special award at the Ukrainian Chytomo Award for Outstanding Achievements in Publishing(opens in a new window) and will therefore be represented with a stand at FBM25. We spoke to co-founders Iryna Lisova and Slava Svitova to mark the occasion.

One publishing house, seven female founders: When and how did you meet and what made you decide to make books for women together?

Iryna Lisova : Once upon a time, there was a women's circle of four females who once a week used to gather in one of their kitchens, to support, listen, and empower each other. After a year, these women welcomed the fifth person and together started a women's co-working and event space, Creative Women Space, in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine. After two busy years, the space was shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just at that time, in early 2020, we were nurturing the idea of starting a publishing house since all of us were related to books and literature to some extent. We then welcomed two more female experts from those who often visited our creative space as lecturers or guests and had experience in the publishing field. And that’s how the story starts.
 

Your books are very much about change, they lift taboos and expose prevailing power relations. Is the war situation having an impact on the position of women/femininity in Ukraine?

Iryna Lisova : The Russian war offensive that Ukraine has been facing since 2014 has changed the female role in society. One may think that patriarchal ideas prevail during wartime. The women who left to go abroad because of the full-scale invasion, or who stayed in Ukraine and whose partners serve in the army, are living with the double burden of parenthood. If earlier they shared the childcare with their partners, now they live almost like single mothers.
At the same time, the number of women now serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has grown immensely, with more than 60 thousand women in service. The job market has changed drastically, and women are in demand for those professions which were historically considered more appropriate for men - this is also because of the mobilisation of males. So, women now take responsibility for their households, are sole caregivers, and also serve and volunteer - they literally rock.
 

You are aiming to build a community of female readers around your publishing house. What do you hope to gain from this and how do you realise this community concept in concrete terms?

Slava Svitova : I once heard that a reputation is what people are saying about you when you are not in the room. We deeply value the women’s community which is gradually growing around our Creative Women Publishing, first of all because the story of our publishing house is not typical. We were founded without any financial capital but with the help of our community (we gathered the money for our first book on the Ukrainian crowdfunding platform Biggggidea where 333 benefactors believed in the idea of our publishing and supported our first book). This was how our story began and this is how it develops further, and the community of mostly female but also male readers play a very important role here. For we create for the people, and every time a book becomes popular among our audience, this is just another reason to celebrate that we did everything right, we heard the demand or we found an important topic that touches and impacts others.

Our feminist publishing house is deeply rooted in the values that we share as a team. These values are like a radar or a lighthouse which attracts like-minded people: female empowerment, vulnerability, transparency, dialogue, equality, and creativity. We believe that a community of women who read and write is capable of bringing about some positive changes in society, so the more women we gather around the books like this, the better. Natalia Kobrynska, the first feminist and the founder of the organized Ukrainian women’s movement back in 1884, was spreading ideas about the importance of books in women’s lives and how books influence, inspire, and educate women. We are Natalia’s followers nowadays. We believe in the same values now, in 2025, as Ukraine is fighting for its independence and sovereignty. Natalia Kobrynska was trying to spread these progressive ideas many years ago, in the 19th century, when Ukraine did not have its statehood and was torn apart between the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian Empires. Having no other means but a book, Natalia Kobrynska united Ukraine by bringing together its women writers from West and East of Ukraine under the cover of a women’s almanac called “The First Wreath”. It became a symbol of female writing and sisterhood. 
 

You will be represented with a stand at FBM for the first time in 2025. What wishes/ambitions do you have for this?

Slava Svitova : To be present at Frankfurter Buchmesse with our small feminist Creative Women Publishing is not only to represent our books and our brand but more importantly to represent the Ukrainian women’s movement and Ukrainian feminism, which goes back to 1884 and has its sustainable tradition that could be interesting for the European public. We are very much interested in building partnership bridges and participating in international networking as this is always the way to hunt for some new ideas as well as the possibility to represent both historical and modern Ukrainian female voices that speak volumes about who we are in Ukraine today. There is a book in our portfolio called “Cry, Sister, Laugh”, a beautifully written diary-esque book about women's sensuality and how privacy has transformed throughout the full-scale war. Violetta Kim is a young author from Dnipro, and  in her book she is searching for lost sisterhood and exploring personal change. The book consists of 16 essays by the author and excerpts from in-depth interviews with 23 women. We are confident that this book should be available for European readers in English and/or other languages to help them understand the context of the Ukrainian women who experience this existential war that Russia is waging against Ukraine and becoming the epitome of vulnerability, strength and vitality at the same time.

All our books primarily focus on feminist themes and topics important to women, such as self-development, career growth, self-discovery, body image, relationships, creativity, art, financial literacy, and fiction centred on women's empowerment. We publish in Ukrainian and are excited to add more foreign titles to our portfolio, as well as to translate our books into other languages.
 

About Creative Women Publishing https://www.creativewomenpublishing.com.ua/(opens in a new window) 

About Chytomo Award https://award.chytomo.com/en/(opens in a new window) 

Interview by Katrin Hage, PR Manager Frankfurter Buchmesse