I didn’t set out to write about complicated places, I just kept ending up in them. What started as short stays turned into years. Somewhere along the way, I became an accidental expat, raising three kids far from where I began, in places that were as unpredictable as they were unforgettable. Now, when I sit down to write, I find myself going back, closing my eyes and stepping into the sights, the sounds and the undercurrent of the once unfamiliar that now live in my heart. That’s where my stories come from. I write fiction rooted in those places I lived, where landscape, culture, and character are inseparable, and where adventure and consequence often walk hand in hand. My current novel, Emerald International, is set in 1990s Madagascar during its infamous gemstone boom, when foreign opportunity outpaced law and order after years of self-imposed isolation.