The Way Out — And Back
Spending part of last week inside the University of Luxembourg’s imposing steel skyscraper, situated next door to an even more imposing former steel manufacturing facility was a little eerie....
View ArticleNo Time Wasted
Timing can mean everything in life, making for sheer bliss when it’s right and dashed hopes when it isn’t. This year I set my sights on completing a book manuscript in time to take a ten day summer...
View ArticleDecember 10th Book Release
A Place They Called Home. Reclaiming Citizenship. Stories of a New Jewish Return to Germany, my edited collection of essays published by Berlinica and supported by the Stiftung Zurückgeben, will appear...
View ArticleA Place They Called Home: Event Photos
A Place They Called Home. Reclaiming Citizenship. Stories of a New Jewish Return to Germany was introduced at the Leo Baeck Institute’s Center for Jewish History in New York on December 10th. Yale...
View ArticleBerlin Book Launch – March 17th
“A Place They Called Home. Reclaiming Citizenship. Stories of a New Jewish Return to Germany” Edited by Donna Swarthout (in English) WHEN: Sunday, March 17, 3pm-5pmWHERE: Archetyp Café, Marienburger...
View ArticleBBC’s ‘Heart and Soul’ Comes to Berlin
My efforts to find a venue for the Berlin book launch of A Place They Called Home had left me frustrated until I met the team at Archetyp Cafe. Owned by a couple of brothers from a German Jewish...
View ArticleShelf Life
I never expected fame or fortune from a book about German Jews reclaiming their German citizenship. In fact, the positive reviews and publicity for A Place They Called Home quite exceeded my...
View ArticlePlaces to Call Home
Winterfeldtplatz, December 2010 Nine years ago I was learning not to pet peoples’ dogs or smile at strangers like we did back in Montana. Parenting took up a lot more of my time than it does nowadays...
View ArticleBook Royalties: Giving Back
The term ‘royalty’ has been associated with rights granted by a sovereign ruler to an individual since the late 15th century. That is a fitting term for the share of profit given by the publisher who...
View ArticleGerman Citizenship – The Next Decade
Things got off to a rocky start when Brian and I arrived at our local Rathaus to renew our German passports last month. With the stern tone of many a German bureaucrat, Frau O. admonished us that we...
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