“A man-made rill lined with local river stones flows between the grasses, opening into an eye-shaped pond that both looks up at the clouds and reflects them, before continuing on its little way.” I wrote about a private garden on a grand hidden estates outside Geneva, Switzerland, redesigned by landscape design firm Wirtz…(Read More)
“To me, freedom is being able to choose a career path based on vocation rather than the fear of ending up without medical insurance.” For my op-ed in USA Today on being a writer, being an expat, endometriosis, and universal healthcare, please look here…(Read More)
“This past September at the age of 98, Ben Steele died in Billings, Montana. The length of his life was remarkable. The horrors he surmounted make it still more so. Steele’s life story offers profound lessons of tenacity, endurance, the power of creativity, and the value of dialogue and diversity that all of America…(Read More)
The Wall Street Journal invited me to recommend five books on the legacy of war, for its 5 Best column. I wrote about novels by John McGahern, Evie Wyld, Patrick Modiano, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Uzodinma Uweala. Amongst Women By John McGahern (1990) 1. The threat of imminent violence hangs over every page of this Irish…(Read More)
“How do we as individuals reconcile the war experiences of our family members with our own, as combatants or civilians? How deeply and permanently does war permeate society, even far—geographically and temporally—from the front lines? And, ultimately, what can we learn from it?” In a fourth-of-July op-ed for TIME magazine…(Read More)
“By the last day of our stay in the game reserve, I had relaxed enough to leave the girls to their own devices while my husband and I joined an armed ranger on a walking safari, proscribed to kids sixteen or under. They had a good time. Amongst giraffes and whistling thorn trees, my husband…(Read More)
“My adult life before becoming a published novelist was like the questing roots that grow wide and far to suck in the moisture and minerals that make the apple tree’s limbs blossom. The deeper and richer and greater the roots, the stronger the tree, the healthier the flower.” Experience Required: Growing the Roots, an…(Read More)
“Most literary novelists feel relatively confident they can sell copies of their newly published book to their parents, probably to their siblings, maybe (if they haven’t sparred too often over loud music, lawnmowers, or leaf blowers) to their neighbors… But how about beyond the fruited plain? Whose work gets read outside of America?” Finding…(Read More)
“From 1997 to 2007, we lived in the small city of Strasbourg in eastern France… During those ten years, I did several notable things: I, with my husband, brought our two daughters through infancy; I began my debut novel, An Unexpected Guest; and I learned to listen to French pop music.” I created a playlist…(Read More)
“[U]sing foreign words is a slippery slope. Creating a sense of place is one thing, but you don’t want to drive readers crazy with incomprehensible phrases or dialect. You want the language to work for the story and not against it.” Some readers are instantly uncomfortable when they encounter unfamiliar words in a…(Read More)
