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 2008 for a Fellowship to the Elizabeth Kostova Sozopol Fiction Seminars. With Megan Lueneburg and Priscilla Howe, she is currently at work on a picture-storybook, Nest, about the ebb and flow of populations into and out of Bulgarian villages.