I have always been a question-asker, listening, probing, and examining the angles. That curiosity, and a taste for the unfamiliar, planted the seeds for a varied career that over decades has taken me from the Maryland State House to Yerevan, from the remote mountains of northern Albania to Lenin’s tomb. I have never lost my fascination with the way other people live or think.

I am a writer and editor, with a love of words — frigate, lugubrious, and irascible are some current favorites — who understands that writing is thinking. Which can be hard work. As good writers and editors know, it takes rigor to produce something that seems effortless and approachable.

More personally, I live in Baltimore with my awesome husband and three ridiculously cute cats. My favorite way to spend a day is walking in the English Lakes followed by a pub dinner or going to a Bruce Springsteen concert.

Homer Simpson