The Golden Ticket
As a college admissions consultant, I spend most of my time helping high school seniors tell their best stories. In this book, I tell mine. I don't always appear at my best, but then again, I'm not trying to get into college; instead, I respond to college application essay prompts as honestly as I can. In my somewhat biased opinion, it's a funny, sad, cantankerous, and thought-provoking meditation on ambition, the American dream, college admissions, developmental delays, difficult parents, obstinate children, and why everyone should read more. (Topics are in alphabetical order, not in the order they appear in the book.)
Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis
Art, Toni Morrison wrote, compels us to bear witness to the world "as it is and as it should be. Art invites us to know beauty and to solicit it, summon it, from even the most tragic of circumstances."
In my essay, "Packing Essentials," I write about a book my parents took with them when we left the former Soviet Union as political refugees—and about the power of art to transform, inspire, and endure.
All proceeds from sales of this book are donated to the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, an organization conceived by chef José Andrés as a way to feed people affected by natural disasters and war.