In the English books, the American kids' books, typically, there is a problem, the characters grapple with that problem, and the problem is resolved.
One of the maddening things about being a foreigner in France is that hardly anyone in the rest of the world knows what's really happening here. They think Paris is a socialist museum where people are exceptionally good at eating small bits of chocolate and tying scarves.
A large part of the creative process is tolerating the gap between the glorious image you had in your mind and the sad thing you've just made.
Usually, I'm so self-absorbed that my companion could be bleeding to death, and I might not notice.
Being an immigrant mother can be hard, but being a poor immigrant mother is much harder. You don't generally get to sit in cafes polishing your French by reading 'Le Monde.'
If you had asked me what I wanted when I was 12 years old, I probably would have said, 'To marry a plastic surgeon.' You can hardly blame me: I was growing up in Miami.
