Our V.I.P. Featured Guest Anika Pavel was born Jarmila Kocvarova in Czechoslovakia. What was intended as a one-year stay in England turned her into a refugee when the Soviet Union invaded her homeland, writing a bloody end to the Prague Spring. She received a crash course in life that took her from sleeping in a telephone booth at the Victoria railway station in London to waitressing, to the lights of the fashion runway, and on to magazine covers, even a James Bond appearance, under the more pronounceable moniker, Anika Pavel. When the lights had dimmed, she returned to her first love, writing. Her work has been published in print, online and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.