Esther Cohen

I've often been asked to write a brief biography, to explain who I am--one of those linear statements of life that no one likes to read: I was born here, moved there, traveled in between.

The way we talk about ourselves so rarely tells the reader much: those rational details--my height, my weight, number of husbands, number of children. Titles of my published stories, poems. How I wrote my current novel.

Book Doctor took years to write.

What's often most interesting about all of us is what we do not say. Here's what I can tell you, that you might like to know. I love to write, and always have: the way words fall out right onto a page, out from some mysterious place I do not know. I love stories, especially stories from strangers: the tall foreign woman who sat next to you on a plane, who tells you every single thing she can about her life, then vanishes at the Cleveland airport, leaving you with her story forever.