I leave the club after my morning workout and one of the guards helps me flag down a tuk tuk. As I climb in, he says, “You’re lucky. God bless you.”

I’ve lived in Sri Lanka just over two months. Things still confound me. People confuse me. Is the guard referring to the luck of getting a tuk tuk quickly? But they’re ubiquitous. It would be unaccountably bad luck if one hadn’t stopped. The “god bless” is likely just a translation from his own language, Sinhalese or Tamil. People around the world wish each other god’s protection when they part. There was a time when we westerners did the same. Yet his parting troubles me. It stays with me as we pass now familiar mansions, heading for my own.

I saw an Asian Paradise Flycatcher yesterday morning. The bird life in Sri Lanka is the best I’ve seen anywhere in the…

I realize it’s hypocritical to launch my brand new blog with a post about why writers, like myself, should not be blogging. I’d like to tell you I have some lofty, mitigating reason why it’s okay for me to blog, while advocating others refrain, but the truth is, I’ve given in to peer pressure. Everyone I know in the writing community tells me blogging is good, though no one has actually proved to me it’s good. No one, for example, has shown concrete data that clearly links record book sales to blogs, but despite that I’ve heard blogging advocated at every conference I’ve attended, on the lips of all my writer friends. The belief in its value is so universal, it’s compelling. I’m compelled.

Despite that I can’t bring myself to actually jump into the world of blogging without first voicing my reservations. It’s time for me to have my…

Sixteen-year-old Emma is no stranger to moving. The daughter of a Canadian diplomat, her life has been a series of changing landscapes, cultures and friendships. But when her parents split up and she and her siblings are forced to move to Pakistan with her mother, her feelings of loss and culture shock are overwhelming . Add to that rising political tensions, and her attraction to a local boy who has been promised to someone else, and Emma’s life very quickly spirals out of control, putting herself and those she loves in mortal danger.