During a recent visit to Canada, old friends took us beachcombing on the Northumberland coast of Nova Scotia. There, I received a practical course in sea glass hunting. Neither I—nor my friends, the experts—found amazing museum-quality pieces, but we picked up handfuls of pebbles, shards, and even grains in a variety of beautiful colors—white, aqua,…
Among the many themes in my books, the motif of HOME—or perhaps more precisely, houses—surprises me most with its broad-spectrum presence. I never planned to weave those ideas into the writing, was hardly even aware of them. But in this homesick world, maybe that’s not unexpected at all. Recently I suffered an attack…of nostalgia. Did…
“Do you believe in destiny?” Nicolás Serrano, up to his elbows in apple mash, asks halfway through my first book Destiny at Dolphin Bay. His friend Melissa has questioned his self-identification as a Chiloé islander, knowing he grew up a city boy. As she watches him make cider in an antique press, she sees him…
While there may be nothing new under the sun, everything changes “under the sea.” (Cue the theme song from The Little Mermaid…) I grew up near the rocky coast of Maine, on the amazing Bay of Fundy which boasts the world’s highest tides. And while it’s not especially appealing for sunbathing, surfing, or swimming (unless…