In the midst of revising Seeds of the Pomegranate, I keep coming across the story of photographer Alice Austen. My brother and sister-in-law lived around the block from her famous house, Clear Comfort, in Rosebank, Staten Island in the 1990s. She was the founder of...

Here I sit at my desk, working hard to complete the latest draft of my novel, Seeds of the Pomegranate. It's winter in the Adirondacks and I feel like I'm deep underground, like a seed germinating. Unseen. Quiet. This is my seventh draft of the story. I've written...