I can't wait to share READING JANE: A DAUGHTER'S MEMOIR with readers and listeners. It's an exploration of a mother and daughter (me) that I've been told reads like literary fiction. Although it tells the story of my family, I think you'll find yourself with insights into the ways our culture often pretends to be well when we aren't, as well as real-life examples of the many ways parents pass on their emotions or lack of emotions to their children and how that affects the children's lives. It is also about connection and travel and coming of age. The nitty gritty: READING JANE tells the story of the year I spent reading the 45 years of diaries my mother left me after she chose to end her life. Through her written words, I remember my childhood in new ways and I find out secrets that my mother wanted to put away forever. Because I'm reading them as an adult mother myself, however, I am no longer a passive recipient of her tale. I can draw the traces through the generations and by explaining the connections, can find understanding and try to become a better mother myself. Who I am: I was born in India and raised in the United States. I was a journalist and then became a social anthropologist, which essentially means I am curious and like to figure out how people and cultures work underneath the surface. My German husband, our three children and I lived in a thatched-roof farmhouse in the countryside outside Hamburg before returning to northern California in the aftermath of my mother's suicide. Tooting my horn: READING JANE won honorable mention at the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival. It also just received a great Kirkus Review! Short pieces have been published in The Summerset Review, Evening Street Review, Halfway Down the Stairs and Wilderness House Literary Review and (mac)ro(mic).