Blog

Blog

Thoughts on writing, reading and life...

  • December 6, 2013
    On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison—a free man after twenty-seven years. Tall and thin, he carried his head high as he always had. But something was different. His good friend...
  • November 12, 2013
    On November 8, I spoke to 130 middle schoolers from the Washington, DC area at the Fall Model UN Conference on child soldiers. I spoke about the difficulties faced by tens of thousands of child...
  • November 3, 2013
    Ida, our youngest daughter, lives in Congo where she works for Human Rights Watch. This October my husband and I traveled to Congo to visit her and to do some reporting.
  • August 11, 2013
    Veteran journalist Paul Salopek has embarked on a seven-year journey around the world. He may be a modern day explorer but he's also an old-fashioned trekker. Paul will cover 21,000 miles BY FOOT!
  • May 22, 2013
    My cousin Mary, the musical one who lives on Vashon Island off the coast of Seattle, sent me an email this week. She wanted me to know she’d found a good home (a senior care center) for the grand...
  • May 21, 2013
    In New York City, when I was growing up, we moved from one apartment to another. We changed schools. President Kennedy was shot. My best friend’s father died. Things didn’t stay the same. But, in...
  • March 10, 2013
    Today marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Harriet Tubman, a fearless conductor on the Underground Railroad. She is greatly admired for her bravery in guiding slaves to freedom and for her...
  • February 15, 2013
    Afghanistan’s parliament now has 68 women members, and one of them, Fawzia Koofi, is running for president.
  • January 9, 2013
    A new postage stamp, designed by my good friend Antonio Alcala and Gail Anderson, is marking the Emancipation Proclamation's 150th anniversary. Early on the first day of the new year my husband and I...
  • October 15, 2012
    “You don’t need to invent some Nobel Prize winning formula to save millions of children. The solution already exists: soap and water,” says Therese Dooley, UNICEF's senior adviser on sanitation and...