• “Hard Love” Story – Interview with VOA Cambodia

    Soksreinith Ten (call her Nith, she told me) , a reporter with Voice of America just interviewed me for their English and Khmer News Service about Either the Beginning or the End of the World. She asked, in a few words tell me what your novel is about. I said it’s about a mother and daughter. They love each other but they can’t tolerate each other easily. “I thought by 16 I’d be over her,” my character says. The mom is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime. Then Nith and I had this extraordinary conversation about her mom, also a survivor, and they have the same “hard love” as I write about. I was greatly relieved and honored that Nith found the story honest and true. READ MORE

  • Elsa Marston’s Love Affair with Lebanon

    Here is what I imagine.  Elsa Marston’s literary love affair with Lebanon and the Middle East might also have been about a love affair with her husband, Iliya Harik. He was from Lebanon and taught at Indiana University all their married life.  Elsa Marston has just died.  I can say she was my colleague, but I had only met her recently, in Mexico City, where I’d never been before.  Here’s an illustration from one of her books,  The Olive Tree, set in Lebanon during what Elsa calls “the troubles.” From her site I find that she refers to the Lebanese Civil War. READ MORE

  • A small glimpse on writing trauma

    Soksreinith Ten, a reporter with Voice of America News, just interviewed me for their English and Khmer News Service. She asked, in a few words what is your novel about? I said it’s about a mother and daughter. They love each other but they can’t tolerate each other. “I thought by 16 I’d be over her,” my character says. The mom is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime. Then the reporter and I had this extraordinary conversation about her mom, also a survivor, and they have the same “hard love” as I write about. READ MORE

  • Meet WOW! “World of Words”

    “World of Words”  says.

    WOW! World of Words
    Immigrant and Refugee Stories

    “Literature expands children’s life spaces and takes them outside the boundaries of their lives to other places, times, and ways of living in order to participate in alternative ways of being in the world. Readers are invited to immerse themselves into story worlds to gain insights about how people live, feel, and think around the world in order to develop emotional connections and empathy as well as knowledge.”

    Check these links out for worlds of books for kids and teens ~ READ MORE