War correspondents Janine di Giovanni has spent most of her career—more than twenty years—in war zones recording events on behalf of the voiceless. From Sarajevo to East Timor, from Sierra Leone to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, she has been under siege and under fire. Her memoir Ghosts by Daylight: Love, War, and Redemption is an account of her time reporting on war around the world. Along the way she meets Bruno, a French reporter whose spirit and audacity are a match for her own. Their love affair spans nearly a decade and a dozen armed conflicts before they settle in Paris to raise a family. But Janine soon learns that a life lived in war is inevitably haunted. Bruno struggles with physical and emotional pain, and Janine, a new mother and wife in Paris, is afraid both for Bruno and herself and for the work that they do—and doubtful that she can hold their lives together.
* Prison and criminal justice consultant and coach Wendy Feldman talks about working with people to prepare for incarceration, alternative sentences and, re-entry into society. She is the only woman in her field and the only ex-offender who now works in collaboration with different law enforcement agencies. In 1986 Wendy began a Wall Street career, but by 2001, through a series of poor choices, bad business decisions and domestic abuse in her home, she landed right in the middle of a Federal investigation. She served time in a federal prison camp and halfway house and knows first hand the journey that awaits a person whose choices have landed them in our criminal justice system. She believes that prison should be a transformational experience and the ultimate equalizer. Currently, she and Custodial Coaching have collaborations with Las Encinas Hospital, The Ranch, Elements Treatment Centers, Promises and others. She is a member of the Pasadena Police Department’s mental health advisory committee and also runs a legal wellness program with the department.
* Born in St. Kitts and brought up in the UK, Caryl Phillips has written about and explored the experience of migration for more than 30 years through his novels, plays, and essays. In Color Me English: Thought About Migrations and Belonging Before and After 9/11 he reflects on the shifting notions of race, culture, and belonging before and after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The book opens with an inspired story from his boyhood, a poignant account of a shared sense of isolation he felt with the first Muslim boy who joined his school, then turns to his years living and teaching in the United States, including a moving account of the day the twin towers fell. We follow him across Europe and through Africa while he grapples with making sense of colonial histories and contemporary migrations—engaging with legendary African, African American, and international writers from James Baldwin and Richard Wright to Chinua Achebe and Ha Jin who have aspired to see themselves and their own societies more clearly.
