I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to make sense of the world through stories. The first story I ever “wrote” was in green crayon on a wall of the house we lived in then, in Delhi Cantonment.

The year I was born in Delhi, independent India was 9 years old! Now I live in northwest New Mexico, whose 1000-year history predates the young United States of which it's a part. I practice taiji quan and yoga, try to plant a vegetable garden every year, read three books at once at any given time, and visit India annually. My writing is all about understanding, crossing, dissolving the borders that separate people.

I’m on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Teaching keeps me honest, and my students give me the courage to write.

When readers write to say that my words made them laugh, think, cry, that validates what I do. I think I’m still writing on metaphorical walls.