About the Author

Frances Garrett Connell lives and writes in New York City. Currently she teaches for the University of Maryland University College, does intermittent consultancies for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, leads groups in visiting immigrant detainees, follows every lead of her three amazing adult sons and their brilliant wives, and has the delight of sharing a new world with three dazzling grandsons.

Her books have included two novels,The Only Thing I Was Fit For: A Novel (R) and Down Rivers of Windfall; two large collections of poetry, The Rest is Silence and Between the Shadow and the Soul; a memoir on Afghanistan in the 70's and a reflection on the debacle of war there since, With One Fool Left in the World, No One is Stranded: Scenes of an Older Afghanistan; and a collection of photographs and text, Children Kept from the Sun: Excerpts from a Peace Corps Journal 1973-1976. Her poetry and articles have been published in some thirty literary magazines and in the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post, and she has had the privilege of working with dozens of families, classmates, and other individuals to record their oral histories, and/or write their family histories. She is currently working on another novel, polishing up a small poetry chapbook, and planning for a trip around the world.