Meet Ksenia

If you’re a stickler for correct spelling (and if you're curious enough to Google me), my name is Ksenija Popović. If, however, you don’t feel like driving yourself crazy trying to guess how to pronounce that J and whether the weird C at the end is a K or a CH, you might choose to go with Ksenia Popovich. And if you want to make it easy on yourself, my friends call me Kse, and I love it!

No matter how you choose to spell me, I'm an author by vocation and a high-performance coach by trade. Over the years (decades, to be honest), I’ve also worn the hats of diplomat, TV journalist & producer, and arts & theatre festival director. But through it all, from my childhood in my minuscule Balkan country to my globe-trotting years in Italy, the United States, Spain, and France, books have been my way of making sense of the world, myself, and all the contradictions in both.

I’ve written novels, plays, short stories, blogs, op-eds, and even a couple of scripts — anything but poetry, though not for lack of trying. With my debut novel, The Boy from the Water (2004), I became the first female novelist ever published in Montenegro. The book won an award and was adapted into a feature film.

My second novel, A Lullaby for No One’s Vuk (2012), became a successful stage production.

My work as a playwright, columnist, and screenwriter has broadened my storytelling across various formats.

Fathers Before Sons is my first novel written directly in English.

Outside of writing and talking about writing, I'm a high-performance coach, avid photographer, and mixed media artist. I love helping ambitious, creative people find their spark. My creative process relies on a genuine love for the depth and inconsistencies of the human experience.

Narrative Mind is my space to openly discuss the ins and outs of writing fiction, the mindset that helped me overcome the greatest writer's block in the history of all writer's blocks, and to do it with honesty, friendship, and strategies that have worked for me.