Like Professor Stillman in my novel ZAFIRAH’S GIFT, I’ve been a philosophy professor (onetime NEH fellow, IAS Princeton scholar) mostly at St. John’s College, Santa Fe. Though I’ve published several papers in academic journals (mostly in ancient philosophy), ZAFIRAH’S GIFT is my first novel.

Like Stillman, I worked at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, in 2006-7 as Fulbright program manager; a witness to the clash of cultures and ambitions that marked our involvement there, I helped send many Iraqi scholars to study in safety in America. Our stories diverge, but Stillman and I share doubts about the academic life, a love-hate relationship with Nietzsche, and (perhaps) a tendency toward excess rumination.