Eireene Nealand was a 2014–2015 Fulbright Fellow in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 1993, she traveled to Bulgaria to intern for the US Embassy during Bulgaria’s transition period. She returned to Bulgaria in 2003 for a Fellowship to the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation's Sozopol Fiction Seminars. Her collaborative picture-storybook, Nest, about the ebb and flow of populations into and out of Bulgarian villages, will be published in May by NovaKultura.