This is the first of a three part post on my recent trip to Sierra Leone. This story, about a car breakdown, is eerily similar to a scene in My Heart is Not My Own. I’ve returned to Sierra Leone. Cartons of solar lights for girls and their teachers. Reading kits for primary to middle […]
secret societies
On, debt to life….
I’m not overly superstitious—I walk under ladders, step on cracks in the sidewalk. I know a Russian neurologist, well published in scientific journals, who doesn’t like to acknowledge when “things are going well” as we do in North America—what if, in the telling, you make it not so? In My Heart is Not My Own […]
On Agents, Editors……And a New Cover!
When I completed my PhD in 1987 I thought I would never attempt another project that required as much attention to detail, hard work, and commitment. I was wrong. Writing My Heart Is Not My Own has required all of the above. I’ve done my homework–four trips to Sierra Leone, phone calls and lengthy email […]
The Next Big Thing
Recently, Helen McClory of Shietree tagged me in The Next Big Thing that is going around the blogs. Helen’s prose and photos are so consistently lovely I read every one of her posts. My answers pertain to my upcoming novel, My Heart is Not My Own. Where did the idea come from for the book? […]
A few days among the Mende in Sierra Leone
This is a “live” post from Sumbuya, Sierra Leone. I ask your forgiveness for spelling or grammatical errors—I’m in an NGO office, the lights are blinking and, well—this is going to be one draft only. I’m here to tidy up loose ends. Tomorrow I’ll attend the opening of the school that our family and friends […]
On standing out….below the radar, in Sierra Leone
I’ve often been asked if I’ve ever felt uncomfortable in Sierra Leone. The answer is yes, when I was there in 2000, during the war. It was a year after ‘the second coming of the demons’, which is how Sierra Leoneans often refer to January, 1999, when the rebels retook most of Freetown. When Joseph […]