Joan would be happy that I’m here. She’d be thrilled to find herself in the Athens of America: the city of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Isabella Stewart Gardner, and Candlewick Press.I’m thrilled too, so gleeful that I’m going to share a secret, a truth not universally acknowledged in the writing world: Sometimes...

  Her father’s well-remembered voice came to save her. “When you’re sad, my Little Star, go out of doors. It’s always better underneath the open sky.”  — Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs I am writing about Eva in my back garden. A bowlegged wasp is exploring the pages of my notebook, and...