EMMANUELLA HRISTOVA
Now available on Amazon, iBooks, barnesandnoble.com, Kobo and Lulu! With 5-Star reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads!
Emmanuella's debut poetry collection documents the birth and death of a relationship, and the death of her sister. Each poem is an emotional time-stamp that plunges the reader into the depths of the author’s feelings as they burgeon and wane. The book reads like a diary and chronicles the boundaries of the things that we all feel: love, heartache, and pain that gives way to hope.
The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder excerpts
upon identifying the day
I knew I loved you
the moment I saw you
the second time I came to
visit you in The City and you
were wearing a cerulean button-down
that matched your eyes and you
had just shaved your beard and
I wanted to kiss you, but
not like a nervous first kiss or
a slobbery wet one; but rather,
the kind of peck lovers give to one another
after being together for years and
what they’re passing between their lips
is time.
October 9th
I hesitate when you kiss me because I
am afraid you will taste the disaster
brewing underneath my skin. Or maybe,
my kisses taste hot, like a dangerous
sun storm raging on the broiling
surface of our most familiar star. Or maybe,
they taste cool, like a bubble rising
to the surface above a deep ocean cavern that
holds fountains of dark chaos
beneath its depths. Or maybe,
they taste fluid, like running the edges of
worn book pages across your lips, inhaling
the texture of clandestine paper and ink that
spill out unknown stories. Or maybe,
you kiss me because you are sucking
the poison that penetrates out from
the cocoon of my heart,
pulsing through abysmal channels
till it reaches the contours of my fingertips.
You probably feel it like a heat on your skin,
like an electric stove
growing too searing to tolerate. Or maybe,
you kiss me because you like
the taste of disorder; to you
it tastes sweet. To me
it feels like catastrophe.
publicity
articles, reviews & features
"Bay Point Resident Publishes Book of Poems"
"It reads like a diary because at one point it was my diary,” said Emmanuella Hristova of Bay Point, a local author and poet, who recently published her first book of poems entitled, The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder...
During her time in graduate school, Hristova melded her raw emotion and inner turmoil into a book-length collection of poems, but decided to let them sit for a while until she had fully processed her feelings. When she revisited her work nearly a year later, one of her close friends urged Hristova to publish her poems. After finding an editor and assembling the manuscript for an e-book, Hristova’s work became reality."
Book Review
"The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder is a collection of poems written by Emmanuella Hristova and in her book she explores pivotal moments in her life, including the death of her sister and the ‘birth and death of a relationship.’ The poems laced throughout the book are moving as well as poignant and will provoke readers thoughts. The poems are mostly short and quick poems but just because they are short does not mean they have little meaning and poignancy, in fact, they are incredibly profound and will definitely stay in readers memories for a long time, and that is just one quality I love about the incredible The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder."
A Five-star Book Review by Katie McClanahan
"How can one possibly rate someone else's poetry and words? It's so very personal, on both sides. For the one sharing and the one reading. It takes such courage to share one's inner most thoughts and put it out there for others. I loved this.
Beautiful and honest, Emmanuela has been able to put into words what so many of us have felt, and what our hearts have not been able to put into words. Hard and clean, in the way you feel after a good cry. Cathartic and real. Absolutely wonderful."Guest Blog Post
"What’s the book about and who would benefit or like to read it?
The poems in The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder are about love, heartbreak, depression, and grief. The collection begins with the relationship—falling in love, hesitation, turmoil. Eventually, I chronicle the end of the relationship and dwell on the breakup. Two weeks later I find out my sister is dying from stage 4 cancer. And depression unfolds as a result.
Although I began writing about sexism, I chose to leave those poems for the final chapter. There, I tackle sexual harassment, sexual assault, and oppression. The poems move through all the emotions I’ve felt as a result—torment, sadness, anger and reveling glee. The final chapter is dedicated to grieving and healing women."
art
bio
artist | author | teacher
Eмануела Христова
Emmanuella Hristova was born in Oakland, California and grew up in the Bay Area. She is the third daughter to Bulgarian parents who immigrated to California shortly before she was born. She began drawing at the ripe age of four, and studied the fine arts for five years in high school. There, she received many art accolades including a Congressional award for her piece Boy in Red in 2009. In 2015, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley. She began writing poetry at age twenty-four when she was in graduate school. She earned her Master's in Education from the same alma mater in 2017. Emmanuella spent two years as an English teacher in Richmond, California. During that time, she self-published her first poetry collection: The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder. Currently, she is writing her first novel. She speaks English, Bulgarian, Spanish and is now learning French.
connect
Email, social media links & partners
For inquiries, please email
