After my parents moved our family back to the US from Greece, where we lived for five years, we returned most summers. I know there were mishaps—my sister, Marina, sat on a jellyfish and went temporarily blind from taking anti-seasickness medication, while I got mortally offended when well-meaning, but ill-advised, relatives would comment on my […]

I recently made the brilliant/idiotic decision to take my almost-four-year-old and my just-two-months-old with me on the book tour for The Ladies of Managua. As another author (but one who probably wasn’t changing diapers in between chapters) once wrote, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. So much so that […]

A word of advice: be careful what you say around me. Be very careful. Otherwise, you might just end up as the inspiration for my next novel. But don’t worry. When I write about you—and I will!—I promise to be kind. In fact, I will follow the advice I gave in this guest post for […]

  There aren’t many problems that can’t be solved in a Greek yia-yia’s kitchen. (It would be great if the Greek government could let the ladies in our village, Lia, tackle the current economic crisis. But I digress…) During the year in which I lived in Lia, my neighbor ladies made it a village project […]

I had such fun reliving my trips with Amalía for PureWander, a great web magazine that focuses on family travel. It’s a topic dear to my heart as right now I’m typing with seven week old Nicolas on my lap, having brought him to New Orleans and Miami on book tour for The Ladies of […]

Well, it’s the End Times. Which explains why I’m having so many revelations lately. Maybe that’s a little dramatic. I’m fairly confident it’s not the end of the world. But it is the end of our time in Miami. See, on Monday we move back to New York, after three years in Miami Beach. And […]

When Amalía gets tired, she turns to me or her father and says “go to casita.” She knows the word “home,” but it’s not exactly what she intends to say. Casita means “little house,” but it doesn’t refer to size in this case (although it’s true, Amalía has never spent more than a few nights […]