Last week, I woke up to an email that stopped my coffee cup dead in its tracks to my mouth. I applied to graduate school a few weeks before and there was an email from New York University telling me “Congratulations!” I got in. My first thought was “No one applied except for me.” While […]
Category: Writing
Best of 2013
I stared writing this post on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve from our apartment in New York City. The walls were white and bare, mildly pockmarked from the few posters we had hung for our three-month stay. You could tell we had lived here for a short time by the gray and orange cat […]
Five Things I’ve Learned About Writing a Novel
I just reached a major milestone that I set for myself: I’ve written 100 pages of my novel. Allow me a moment to have another sip of wine in celebration and give a little “Hooty Hoot!” My time in New York is seriously winding down and while I sort of wanted to have written more […]
The Grey Area of Blogging
Last week, I attended a little meet-and-greet with President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. No big deal. Back in my former reporting job in Washington DC, I was in close proximity of the president and various “DC famous” people a good number of times, so I […]
A (Green) Space of One’s Own
I was slightly annoyed by the incessant noise in our Manhattan apartment before, but it really got to me during last night’s sleeplessness and today’s endless honking, yelling, and traffic noise. I’ve been sticking to the apartment and writing through the morning. I thought this was working out fairly well. But today, the yelling Iranian […]
I’m Writing a Book
“I’m writing a book” are easy words to say, but harder to actually mean. So I’ve taken to saying “I’m attempting to write a book.” That’s what I’m planning on doing with this gift of getting to live in New York City and not having to work. We’ve been in NYC for six days, and […]
The Sounds of the City
I’m officially a New Yorker. At least for the next three months. Yesterday Mr.YemenEm and I picked up our beloved Diplocats, from whom we were parted for the past 14 months, packed a U-Haul van, and drove to a furnished apartment in Manhattan. This will be our base for the next three months. The place […]
Ma’a Salama Yemen
I’m writing this from the Bahrain airport, sipping a ridiculously good draft beer in a smoky airport bar. It’s not that Stella is even a particularly good beer. It’s just that after not being in a bar for a long time, and not having a draft beer for a long time, this is a feeling […]
What I Think of Yemen
“So, what do you think of Yemen?” is a question I’m commonly asked by Yemenis. My usual response is that I haven’t seen enough of the country to form a strong opinion. I live in a hotel, and I work at the embassy, and I see very little in between (not to mention, I pretty […]
A Post in Which I Overuse the Term “Passion”
My biggest fear about moving to Yemen — a fear bigger that what I’d wear, eat, and whether I’d get blown up — was whether I’d be sacrificing a piece of myself. After all, it was Mr. YemenEm’s goal to work in Yemen, and I just came along for the ride. One thing I knew […]
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