So here I am on the other side of the first round of book launch events. How do I feel? A trifle overwhelmed, fighting a cold that’s turned Read More…
The Big Ask
Dear Friends and Fellow Readers, For months now, I’ve been entertaining you with stories from my upcoming memoir, Daughter of Spies. I’m hoping these have whetted your appetite for the book itself due Read More…
Why I love to Talk to Book Clubs
I once took the Meyers Briggs personality test and although I can’t recall the exact results, I do remember that I landed right on the line between introvert and extrovert. I Read More…
Book Clubs
Daughter of Spies: Wartime Secrets, Family Lies
The author’s mother never talked about her past when her children were growing up. Do you think this is usual for parents in general or is it particularly typical for people who have lived through a war? Have you experienced this with your own parents?
My Mother and the Queen
Although of course, it was expected, I was especially sad to learn of Queen Elizabeth’s death. She and my mother were born three weeks apart. My mother, a British Read More…
Naming My Brand
My publicist suggested to me recently that I identify my brand. The suggestion stumped me. Frankly, I associate the word “brand” with pet food or soup or cigarettes Read More…
Following in My Mother’s Footsteps: A Trip to England
As many of my readers know, I’ve been researching my mother’s childhood in Gibraltar and England for a number of years. While she was still Read More…
My Mother’s Crossing, December, 1944
I FOUND IT! The ship my British mother traveled on when she arrived in New York on January 4, 1945. Here’s a picture of the Royal Mail Cargo Ship DARRO. Read More…
Remembrance Sunday in England
Remembrance Sunday is always observed in England and the Commonwealth on the Sunday nearest to November 11th, Armistice Day. The First World War officially ended in 1918 on Read More…
Sheep Farming
I was in England for a week this month and although, on a previous trip, I’d visited most of the places where my mother lived, I had one Read More…
The Man Who Parachuted into France with my father
A couple of weeks ago I went to Florida to meet Dick Franklin, one of the two men who parachuted into France with my father in 1944.
He and Read More…
A Virtual Meeting
The Internet often drives me mad as it’s such a temptation to pull away from the sentence at hand and dive into the the wonderland of distractions it presents. But Read More…
Decoding my mother: A Final Post from England
Our nineteen-day trip to England was all I wished it to be. We made remarkable connections, identified mysterious photographs,
met cousins we’d “known” only through family lore and the Read More…
Fetcham Park, my grandfather’s childhood home in Surrey
On May 20th, we took another train from Waterloo Station, this time to Leatherhead, Surrey to see Fetcham Park,
the house where my grandfather, Arthur Read More…
The Mysterious Photograph
When I went to Ampleforth Abbey and College last week to show the monks and teachers the photographs my Uncle Ian
took during his short life, there was one Read More…
My Parents Meet
On this day, what would have been my father’s 100th birthday, I think it’s time to bring him on the scene. My mother
is visiting her best friend, Bee Read More…
Whiteshoots Cottage
I’m sitting in our bedroom in Whiteshoots Cottage in Bourton-on-the-Water which I thought until this morning was my great-grandmother’s house from the mid-1920s until her death in 1946. Read More…
My mother’s convent school, Part 2
Angela and Lynda, who work in the shop at the Marriott Hanbury, were very helpful. They gave me a long historical report on the house Read More…
My mother’s convent school
My mother was not surprised when, in 1939, her parents decided to take her out of the simple day school in Gibraltar in order to send her to Poles, a Read More…
Me and the NSA
I’m amused by the way everybody is freaked out about the NSA watching when we send an email and who we’re writing. I grew up in Washington, D.C., Read More…
How I wrote an essay and lived to tell the tale…
I’ve never been very good at essays. I prefer to write stories with characters in them instead of essays where I feel I ought to come to some Read More…
The First of Three Mothers
I am losing three mothers this year.
My own mother died in November. One of my best “book mothers”, Nina Ignatowicz, the editor I’d worked with for Read More…
Waiting to Hear #2
I heard.
I received an intelligent, thoughtful, incisive first read on my new book, a memoir about my mother’s early life and her meeting my father in England during World Read More…
A Blog Tour!
The Next Big Thing Blog Tour
The Next Big Thing is an author blog tour. What’s a blog tour? A blog tour gives those on the tour a chance to Read More…
Do You Love the Story or the Physical Book? Or both?
Here’s a provocative article by Joe Queenan about his 6,128 favorite books.
As for me, I love books in all forms. Even though my bookshelves hold some memorabilia and Read More…
A Wonderful Interview
I love it when interviewers ask me fun and silly and serious questions. Brittney Breakey has made herself a name on the web with her author interviews at Read More…
A Roosevelt Relation
Like so many others in the last week, I’ve been watching the Ken Burns 7 part series on the Roosevelts. I’m familiar with most of this material on Read More…
Research On The Web
Sometimes I bemoan how much time the Web and the Internet seem to steal from my real work which is putting one sentence down after another. Other times, Read More…
Monday Morning Blues
Getting the writer brain moving on a Monday morning.
