The best part of being a writer is that I never know where my next assignment will take me, what I will learn, and whom I’ll encounter along the way. In hundreds of articles for publications ranging from The New York Times Magazine to Family Circle, New York, and Reader’s Digest, I’ve covered subjects as diverse as America’s love affair with pets … international kidnapping … executive search … interfaith marriage … moms without custody … the school dropout epidemic … domestic abuse … senior living communities … ailments that women are too embarrassed to discuss with their doctors. And more.

I’m especially interested in the emotional and psychological dimensions of people’s lives: not why we lose our hearing, for example, but how it feels as sound grows faint, and then in finding out what can be done to help. My books and many of my articles look at challenging relationships—forming families through adoption, making it as a stepparent, caring for parents who once cared for you—in order to discover how people surmount the difficulties, often triumphantly. My talks and workshops—before community groups, professional audiences, and Fortune 500 companies—similarly provide insight and direction.

Challenge and hope are hallmarks of my work.