I grew up in Berkeley, studied English at Cornell, and got a PhD in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. In my first career, I taught poetry and fiction writing in universities. In my second career, I wrote novels and memoirs about love, friendship, family, surfing, cooking, and climbing—as well as journalism for the New York Times and many other publications. In that work, I listened to the life stories of poets, politicians, and athletes. I heard Montana football coaches talk about fatherhood and Cameroonian asylum seekers, as they approached the border wall in Tijuana, take comfort in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. Throughout, I’ve been fascinated by the question of how to engage with our inevitable suffering while still leading an authentic, creative, and joyful life.