Overview

A celebration of the adventure that is other people. --Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply Lauren Groff, Elizabeth Kolbert, Pam Houston, Pico Iyer, T Kira Madden, Gregory Pardlo, Maggie Shipstead, and Peter Orner are among the 65 writers who grapple with this mystery: How can an ephemeral encounter leave an eternal mark? When Colleen Kinder put out a call for authors to write a letter to a stranger who haunts you, she opened the floodgates. The responses--intimate and addictive, all in the form of letters, all written in the second person--began pouring in. These short, insightful essays by today's best literary minds are organized around such themes as Grati-tude, Wonder, and Farewell, and guide us both across the globe and through the mysteries of human connection. Bestselling author Leslie Jamison, who provides the foreword, reveals she has been haunted for years by a traveling magician she met in Nicaragua. Journalist Ted Conover writes his missive to a stranger he met on a New Yorker assignment in Rwanda. From the story of Vanessa Hua's shoe shopper in China to the tale of Michelle Tea's encounter in a Texas tattoo parlor, these pieces are replete with observations about how to live and what to seek, and how a stranger's loaded glance, shared smile, or question posed can alter the course of our lives. Moving and unforgettable, Letter to a Stranger is an irresistible read for any literary traveler and the perfect gift for anyone who is haunted by a person they met once but will remember forever.

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9781665111133

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Letter to a Stranger is nothing less than a celebration of the adventure that is other people. --Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply The symphony of voices in Letter to a Stranger is at times rousing and exhilarating, at other times piercing and plaintive. The human condition is on full display, here in these fleeting glimpses of our essential connectedness. This beautiful book is a perfect one for our times. It reminds us that we are witnesses to one another's joys and heartaches, even if we never exchange a word. --Dani Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Inheritance By turns, moving, hilarious, and scary, this collection of taut fiery essays is a sprint around the world--all keyhole portraits of unexpected brushes with that one character who flares with meaning. --Jack Hitt, author of Bunch of Amateurs

Letter to a Stranger is nothing less than a celebration of the adventure that is other people. --Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply The symphony of voices in Letter to a Stranger is at times rousing and exhilarating, at other times piercing and plaintive. The human condition is on full display, here in these fleeting glimpses of our essential connectedness. This beautiful book is a perfect one for our times. It reminds us that we are witnesses to one another's joys and heartaches, even if we never exchange a word. --Dani Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Inheritance By turns, moving, hilarious, and scary, this collection of taut fiery essays is a sprint around the world--all keyhole portraits of unexpected brushes with that one character who flares with meaning. --Jack Hitt, author of Bunch of Amateurs

Author Information

Colleen Kinder is an essayist and editor whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, National Geographic Traveler, Salon.com, and The Best American Travel Writing. She has taught writing at Yale University, the Chautauqua Institution, and Semester at Sea. A Fulbright Scholar, Kinder received her MFA at the University of Iowa and is the author of Delaying the Real World and the cofounder of the online magazine Off Assignment. Colleen Kinder is an essayist and editor whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, National Geographic Traveler, Salon.com, and The Best American Travel Writing. She has taught writing at Yale University, the Chautauqua Institution, and Semester at Sea. A Fulbright Scholar, Kinder received her MFA at the University of Iowa and is the author of Delaying the Real World and the cofounder of the online magazine Off Assignment. Leslie Jamison is a New York Times bestselling author who has been published in the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Harper's, and the Oxford American. She teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with her family. Ramón de Ocampo, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, was a cowinner in 2018 of the Audie Award for Best Multi-Voiced Performance. A graduate of the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, he has been seen on television, film, and stages all over the world, including recurring roles on such television shows as The West Wing, 12 Monkeys, Sons of Anarchy, and Medium. He is the winner of a prestigious Obie Award for his stage work. Mirron Willis--actor of film, stage, and television--is the winner of the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2012 and a finalist for the Audie in 2015, as well as the winner of four AudioFile Earphones Awards for his audiobook recordings. He has worked extensively in film and television and on stage with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Houston Shakespeare Festival, and the Ensemble Theatre, among others. He has recorded some 150 audiobooks, including the Smokey Dalton series by Kris Nelscott and My Song by Harry Belafonte. He resides and records audiobooks on his family's historic ranch in East Texas. Kimberly Woods is an actress and producer, known for Crazed, Heartprints, and Cartoon Hook-Ups. Coming soon...

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