Kirsten Koza

When most parents consider sending their child to summer camp, they imagine a sunny lake a few hours from home. In 1977, the parents of 11-year-old Kirsten Koza sent their pigtailed, sass-talking offspring to camp in the Soviet Union — with only fifty dollars in her pocket.

Lost in Moscow tells the story of Kirsten’s unusual summertime hi-jinks: evading the Soviet Red Army in a foot race through Red Square, receiving radiation treatments for a minor case of tonsillitis, and making a gut-churning, unauthorized parachute jump — without being certain whether her parachute would even stay on.

CBC (Radio Canada International) says Lost in Moscow is “the ultimate what-I-did-last-summer essay ever.”

CHRY (radio, Toronto): “Kirsten Koza is like Judy Blume on acid.”

Uptown magazine: “Koza, who has a degree in theatre, knows how to tell a story.”

In the Hills magazine: "Lost in Moscow is a funny and fascinating look at the Western World’s bogeyman of the day—communism—through the fresh eyes of a child."

Kirsten Koza is a humorist and adventure travel writer. Her first book, Lost in Moscow, was published by Turnstone and is available in paperback. She’s also a contributor to Travelers’ Tales anthologies: Her story “Chasing Tornadoes” is in The Best Women’s Travel Writing (2013, volume 9), her Kyrgyzstan adventure “Mare’s Milk, Mountain Bikes, Meteors & Mammaries; a nipply night in nomad’s land” is in The Best Women’s Travel Writing (Volume 8), and her misadventure “Easter Island: The Chilean with the Brazilian” is in Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana, the 9th book in the Travelers’ Tales best-selling humour series.

Kirsten has a BA in theatre from Dalhousie University in Canada, and completed the post graduate programme at East 15 Acting School in England. Photos from her adventures can be seen on her website at www.kirstenkoza.com