I grew up in Berkeley, studied English at Cornell, and got a PhD 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 have listened to the life stories of philosophers, poets, politicians, and athletes, heard Montana football coaches talk about fatherhood and Cameroonian asylum seekers, as they neared the US border in Tijuana, take comfort in their memories of reading 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.