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TCK TALENT: The “Where are you from?” question evokes poetic sentiments in this third group of TCKs

Leave a comment Posted by on March 2, 2018

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with a third round of poems composed by Third Culture Kids in answer to that vexed “where are you from?” question.

Hello again, fellow Displaced Nationers, global nomads, expats, Third Culture Kids and other curious travelers! As March comes in like a lion (here on the U.S. East Coast, where Winter Storm Riley has become a strong nor’easter, hitting us with wind, snow and rain), I’d like to present the third post in my series of TCK poetry. If you missed the first two, be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2.

The poems are the work of a group of 11th and 12th graders at an international school in Malta. Their teacher wanted them to think more deeply about what “home” means for them, given that they are all growing up in more than one country.

Before we leave the topic of the weather: We in the Western Hemisphere may be growing tired of winter at this point (the so-called Beast from the East has just swept across Europe). But it’s interesting to note that although all three of the young people featured below are from colder countries than Malta, which enjoys mild winters and warm-to-hot summers, two of them recall the winter season in their poetry. Hm, does absence make the heart grow fonder?

* * *

Where I’m From
By Yoana Tsekova

I’m from the Southeast,
from the Black Sea,
from aromatic rose oil and healing rivers
From weddings and divorces
surrounded by cave paintings.

I’m from movement to fill space,
from applauses and projectors and sleepless nights.
From the ashes of the campfire,
from shaking heads for ‘yes’,
and nodding for ‘no’.

I’m from here and from there
From water balloon gaffes
From white lies to protect friends,
From moments and laughs.

There is a small country that no one knows about.
And there is a small girl that everyone teaches how.
I’m from there—
from gold and rust
And easy trust.

Yoana is Bulgarian and she lived in Malta from 2015 to 2017.

Where I’m From
By Ivan Orlav

I can see a lot of cars
but few people from the window
I can smell the kitchen scents
mixed with the paint from my porch—
Sweet and chemical.

I feel the heat inside the house
and the cold outside the door
I shiver during winter
and feel refreshed during summer.

I’m from the white wool
falling from the sky,
cooling the ground,
for two thirds of the year.


Editor’s Note: We are checking on Ivan Orlav’s country of origin but suspect it is Russia.

Where I’m From
By Judith Smit

I am from Napoleon Bonaparte’s bronze soil,
I am from the silver trust in the eyes of a horse.
I am from the blonde country’s golden hair.

I am from surviving
And winning over the lower levels.
From creativity and freedom
And the possibilities that create dreams.
I am from diversity
And from sharing stroopwafels.

I am from the red
Blood flowing on an ancient stone wall,
From the white
Belly of a Burmese mountain dog,
From the blue
wavy water that never ceases.

I am the fiery clean energy,
The air scented by tulips,
And the unexpected weather.

Judith is from the Netherlands; she has lived in Malta and Holland.

* * *

We love to hear from our readers, so please leave any thoughts, questions, suggestions—and yes, poetry—in the comments! During the last round, it was great to get a poem from Cinda MacKinnon, an Adult Third Culture Kid and novelist whose work has been featured on the Displaced Nation. You can read it here.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; and is a freelance writer and editor. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for more fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for the biweekly Displaced Dispatch, a round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and much much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Related posts:

Photo credits:
– Photo of Bulgaria by Alexandr Bormotin on Unsplash
– Photo of Russian snow by Anton Scherbakov on Unsplash
– Photo of stroopwafels from Pixabay.

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TCK TALENT: In response to “Where are you from?” a few more TCKs wax poetic

2 Comments Posted by on October 14, 2017

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with a second round of poems composed by Third Culture Kids in answer to that vexed “where are you from?” question.

Hello Displaced Nationers, global nomads, expats, Third Culture Kids and other curious travelers! Since the last time my column appeared, I trust you have moved on from an enjoyable summer (or winter, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere) to a splendid fall (or spring).

In celebration of the change in seasons, I’d like to present the second post in my series of TCK poetry here at the TCK Talent column. If you missed the first, be sure to check it out here. As I explained then, the poems are the work of a group of 11th and 12th graders at an international school in Malta. Their teacher wanted them to think more deeply about what “home” means for them, given that they are all growing up in more than one country.

Perhaps because I never even lived in the country of my ancestry (Lebanon), I find it endlessly fascinating to read what these young people had to say in response to the fundamental TCK question: where are you from? The older I get, the more I realize that, although there are places I feel more connected to and that hold a big piece of my heart, I’m definitely not “from” any of these places. I don’t belong entirely to any of them.

And by now I’ve also grown used to the bittersweet flavor of living in-between. At the same time, I feel confident that, given the choice, I would do it all over again—because the sweet far outweighs the bitter.

See what you think of the poems below, readers. Are the young writers on the road to the place where I am now: can they taste more sweet than bitter?

* * *

Where I’m From
By Arabella Ovesen

I am from the tall coconut tree
towering over a blue sea
where the Rhum Runner runs
under the midnight sun.
I’m from the yellow, luxurious castle
Azzurra where father taught me to dazzle.

But one day we went up north,
back to the Vikings’ home
where they work back and forth
in a frozen zone.
And that day, I lost my
Spice Ilse throne.

I’m from the pure white snow
of the Northern Pole.
From being surprised;  
At the age of fourteen,
they didn’t want to survive.
I’m from time being slow, dark.
A place where Caribbean purity
lost its innocence,
and left a burnt mark.


Arabella is from Grenada; she has also lived in Malta and Sweden.

Where I’m From
By Clarissa Meyringer

I am from trams
From steel and cement
I am from cold, glistening snow,
It feels like whipped cream.
I am from the towering pines,
giants whose evergreen leaves
were sharp like knives.

I’m from horses of stone
From Fabio and Ben
I’m from the jokers
And the loners
From turning and turmoil
I’m from shadows,
Seen, never heard or spoken of.

I’m from the shallow sea, crystalline.
From the late night snacks
of my grandmother,
The dangerous soccer fan tales of my uncle
I’m from lore and religion, Supernatural;
A friendship with Luci, Castiel and an alliance with Crowley.

On a wall in my room is a drawing
Colors bright
A breathtaking sight
A crayon mess
I am from that place—
Chaotic and free—
Everchanging.

Clarissa is Austrian-Italian; she was living in Malta at the time of writing.

Where I’m From
By Gianluca Chincoli

I’m from the mixed sounds of farm animals
The mud, those painful marble stairs, and a giant old farmhouse.
I am from fresh air and immense woods
Extending in all directions like a green ocean.

I’m from those two spiteful creatures
That made my life a horror and a fight since the beginning.
I am from big toothless smiles to every stranger
And all those cheeky jokes we crew of three planned every day.

I’m from the wind of the night and the day,
Warm and cold, strong and weak like a zephyr.
On those plastic crafts with sails it was always a tough adventure
But the prizes were always priceless.

I’m from the screamings of my father
New experiences, like no one else in the world.
I am from the orange porch of golden sunsets,
Where the wolf was acting drama in front of the innocent children.

From Italy, Gianluca has been living in Malta.

* * *

We love to hear from our readers, so please leave any thoughts, questions, suggestions, and yes, poetry in the comments!

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; and is a freelance writer and editor. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for the biweekly Displaced Dispatch, a round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and much much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Related posts:

Photo credits:
All photos from Pixabay except:
– Photo of Rum Runner boat in Grenada: 1252 Rhum Runner II in Grenada (19), by Mark Morgan via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
– Photo of Italian football fans: AC Mailand – VfL Wolfsburg (2:2), by funky1opti via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
– NOTE: The final photo (from Pixabay) is of a hiking path in the Garda Mountains, in northern Italy.

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TCK TALENT: The best answer to that pesky “where are you from?” question? A poem!

2 Comments Posted by on July 22, 2017

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli joins us again—and has something new and exciting in store.

Welcome readers! Today we’re starting something new at the TCK Talent Column—a series of poems from TCKs on where they’re “from”.

If you’re a TCK, global nomad or otherwise displaced individual, you will probably appreciate the complexity of emotions raised when you’re being asked a seemingly simple question like: Where are you from? Where is home?

Spread over several posts, we’ll share the work of these TCKs along with some details on where they’re “from” originally and where they’ve lived.

The poems were part of a project and the students’ teacher is the best person to explain how this theme came up and how they tackled it:

“I teach in an International IB school in Malta, and I have 11th and 12th graders who come from all over the world. Last year I started doing a unit on cultural diversity and I connected it to the idea of being a Third Culture Kid.

As Third Culture Kids, we hear ‘Where is your home?’ a lot. It has always been difficult to answer completely, but we wanted to give it a try. While thinking about how to tackle this identity question, we looked at George Ella Lyon’s unique poem “Where I’m From”. In it, home is not connected to one place. Rather, it is connected to all the diverse images, phrases, memories, neighborhood characters, tastes, scents, sounds, and sensations that make up a reflective person’s foundation and sense of self; and this seemed a fitting way to describe our concept of home as well.”

A couple of years ago, I composed my own “where is home” poem, following a prompt on a friend’s blog. It was a fascinating exercise, coming up with the words to express the combination of places, people, sights and smells that make up who I am.

Where I’m From
By Dounia Bertuccelli

I’m from the warm Mediterranean Sea,
And the smell of fresh pines in the mountain.

I’m from lavender fields and vineyards,
And the ochre colored house.

I’m from bahebak, je t’aime,
I love you, te quiero and ti amo.

I’m from islands and continents,
From north to south and east to west.

I’m from all these places that hold my heart,
And from a home that’s rooted in love.

Truth be told, it’s tough to cover everything in a single poem, but at least we can provide a glimpse into the beautiful complexity that makes up the Third Culture Kid life. We are the sum of our experiences, of all our homes, of the blood that runs through our veins, of the people we met throughout our journey, of the foods we tasted, of the smells we breathed in, of the languages we spoke and heard…

All of these make us who we are and tell the story of where we’re truly from.

And now let’s find out how a couple of the TCKs in the Malta class answered this question.

Where I’m From
By Allesia Falcomata

I am from the best cuisine
in a small city of pasta.
I am from fashion shops
and the coffee everyone loves the best.

I am from the south
with hot weather
and the beautiful sea.

I am from the sunset,
when the city lights come on.
I am from November,
‘the cold month’.

I am from tons of pictures,
because the best moments they must be captured.
I am from the black and the white,
and the mystery photo too.

I am also from red,
the warm color.
And from the dreams of
Eiffel Tower love.

From Italy, Allesia was living in Malta at the time of writing.

Where I’m From
By Andy Qiu

I am from the twitter
at five everyday
pushing me to wake up.

I am from the stream
flowing around the mountain
and the sun
lighting up the atmosphere

I am from the golden field,
fragrant with growing rice,
where I spent most of my childhood.
I am from children salivating over
the sausage and ham
hanging on the wooden stick

I am from the town
where everyone provides sincere help.
From the yearly reunion dinner
which includes all the village.

I am from the desire
for a peaceful atmosphere
where it still exists.

Andy (Yuqin) has lived in Malta, China and Costa Rica.

* * *

Readers, I hope you enjoyed this first poetry sampler. And if you’ve written your own version of “where I’m from,” we’d love to have you share it with us in the comments.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; and is a freelance writer and editor. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for the biweekly Displaced Dispatch, a round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and much much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Related posts:

Photo credits:
All photos from Pixabay.

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TCK TALENT: Author-speaker Chris O’Shaughnessy tells the Third Culture Kid story with belly laughs and substance

2 Comments Posted by on May 19, 2017


Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is here again, in the company of another gifted Adult Third Culture Kid.

Hello again, readers! Today’s interviewee is the extraordinary Christopher O’Shaughnessy. A talented author, speaker and TCK advocate, he is passionate about what he does and also happens to be hilarious. As Lisa Ferland, editor of the Knocked Up Abroad series (see top 60 nonfiction expat books of 2016), tells it, Chris’s opening keynote speech at the Families in Global Transition conference in 2016 made a lasting impression “because he made me laugh so hard that I cried.”

Chris is a military brat. He was born in England to American parents, both of whom grew up as Third Culture Kids (his father was born in Germany and raised in France, while his mother spent most of her life in the UK). Following in the family tradition, he spent much of his childhood backing and forthing across the Atlantic as his family moved to bases in Florida and Nevada as well as to multiple US bases within the UK.

After graduating high school in the UK, Chris spent three years traveling between the United States, Germany, and Italy before returning to England to study at Ridley Hall, a theological college in Cambridge, for a degree in Youth, Community Work and Applied Theology, validated by Oxford Brookes University.

After college, Chris moved to Turkey “and then kept on gallivanting”: he can now boast of living and working across the globe and of having ventured to more than a hundred countries. (Right now he lives in Waterloo, Belgium.)

Meanwhile, his passion for nurturing youth and community has only deepened. After a career as a community director in the UK and the Middle East, and then eight years in a military chaplaincy, he became what he is today: a full-time speaker and writer sharing messages of empathy and hope with fellow Third Culture Kids, often through the use of self-deprecating humor. Particularly entertaining are his “lost in America” stories.

Chris’s first major written work is the book Arrivals, Departures and the Adventures In-Between, published by Summertime in 2014. Containing many examples from his own life, it has garnered high praise from the global community.

* * *

Welcome, Chris, to the Displaced Nation. Did growing up as a TCK influence your decision to become a writer and speaker?
Absolutely! In hindsight, a big part of the reason I chose to work with youth and communities was the desire to help people in transition. I didn’t learn the term “TCK” until my final years at university and was so thrilled knowing there was a concept which explained my experiences, that I wrote my final dissertation on TCKs. I’m a firm believer in the power of moving something from intuition to intellect. Learning I was a TCK shifted something I felt to something I could intellectually engage with, learn more about, and use as a framework to examine my life. Over the years I watched many of my peers who also grew up in transition face challenges without the benefit of realizing the strengths their upbringing had bestowed. That’s what inspired me to become a speaker and writer—I wanted “my people” to make the most of their experiences and appreciate their own unique stories. I wanted to help others process intellectually what they felt intuitively, just as I had done. That and my love of speaking into microphones.

In both your writing and speaking you’re able to touch your audience, make them laugh and think, weaving humor, empathy and hope throughout. Have you always had this ease and voice, or is this something you cultivated?
I’ve always had a love for telling stories—I find the human capacity to be moved by and immersed in story to be incredible and beautiful—and for trying to make people laugh. Laughter can be disarming because it’s genuine: it’s a physical outburst we’re relatively comfortable experiencing in a group. Comedy can be a fantastic teaching tool as we tend to remember things that have made us laugh really hard. So the desire to tell stories and make people laugh is probably in my nature, while developing the voice to do so has taken some effort. That said, I’m fortunate in that working with youth has afforded plenty of opportunities to practice and refine my public speaking skills. Kids are very honest critics!

What led you to write your book, Arrivals, Departures, and the Adventures In-Between?
I have been thrilled to see the number of books about TCKs grow over the years, many of which have been helpful for me in processing my own experiences. But while I would draw on this growing body of work in my presentations to students, parents, and school faculty, I found I wanted to leave my audiences with something more than I could possibly cover in that kind of format. So I decided to write my own book in a style that would hopefully entertain while educating and helping others process intellectually what they were going through intuitively.

How long did it take you to produce the book, and what did the process involve?
Admittedly it was a few years between deciding I needed to write a book and actually doing so. In fact, it took a friend calling me to task at a pub one evening and saying, “So, this book you’ve been planning on writing: are you ever going to actually do it?” My friend took it upon herself to hold me to deadlines; as a result, I had my first manuscript in about six months. (To be fair, I’d been thinking about things for so long, it was really just a matter of sitting down to record the concepts and stories in written form.) After I got together with Summertime Publishing, it took at least another six months to finalize the book working with Summertime’s editors and designers. Conveying stories and concepts in written form is a bit different than doing so verbally. I can be far more dynamic when presenting something live, and adapt to the audience as need be. Writing is static; it’s a different kind of discipline.

Are you working on anything else at the moment?
Actually I am in the preliminary stages of producing another book! I have been devoted a lot of my work to the concepts of hope, empathy, community, and connection in our ever-globalizing world. I firmly believe that the experiences TCKs and CCKs (cross-cultural kids) have had with multiple transitions and developing a global perspective carries wider lessons for what the world needs in order to thrive in a new era of technological connectedness and cross-cultural reality. I’m working on a book exploring these concepts—along with the need to go beyond mere tolerance toward something closer to healthy connection and community.

Do you have tips for other globally mobile individuals looking to publish a book or become speakers?
I’m sure it’s been said before…but get out there and do it! Writing and speaking are both skills that really require feedback and interaction to hone. Any opportunity to speak or write is a helpful one. No matter how small the audience, it builds experience and invites feedback. It requires vulnerability, and things don’t always go as planned. But isn’t that the very basis of a story? If it all goes smoothly it’s not very interesting! If we demand struggle and growth and mystery and reflection from stories to hold our attention, shouldn’t we expect the same from life?

I can see why people find your words inspirational! Finally, could you please share any other information or links you would like our readers to know about.
I am really excited about the What Expats Can Do project, put together by Cristina Balden and Claudia Landini of ExpatClic. It is an ingenious way to connect action with the concept of increasing empathy and bringing hope. They used some of the concepts I’d spoken about during my keynote speech at the 2016 FIGT conference (it wasn’t just belly laughs!) and took them so much further. There are challenges to participate in and stories to read—definitely worth checking out. Speaking of FIGT, I’m also a huge fan of Families in Global Transition. It’s got a wealth of resources and connections and hosts an annual conference where you can meet and interact with leaders, innovators, thinkers, and practitioners all focusing on the world of the globally mobile and cross-cultural. It’s inspiring and energizing! Last but not least, I frequently visit the following websites/magazines for inspiration and insight into our field:

• Global Living Magazine
• CULTURS Magazine
• Denizen
• and of course, The Displaced Nation

Thank you so much, Chris! We appreciate all the great resources (and of course the shout-out!).

* * *

Readers, please leave questions or comments for Chris below. Check out his website and connect with him on social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), because as Chris says, “I really do love connecting with people and exchanging stories and adventures!” And don’t forget about his book: you can preview three of the chapters here.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; and is a freelance writer and editor. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for the biweekly Displaced Dispatch, a round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and much much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Related posts:

Photo credits:
Top (clockwise from top left): Interviewee photo (supplied); Gate entrance to Ridley Hall, by Sebastian Ballard via Geograph project (CC BY-SA 2.0); book cover art; and Nellis Air Force Base by Airwolfhound via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Middle: laughing, by nosha via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0),
Bottom: Surfing photo via Pixabay.

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TCK TALENT: Journalist Alison Cavatore has crafted lifestyle magazine for those who consider the world their home

Leave a comment Posted by on April 1, 2017


Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with another super-talented Adult Third Culture Kid guest.

Hello, readers, and welcome to this month’s interview with Alison Cavatore—founder and editorial director of Global Living Magazine, a lifestyle publication for expats worldwide. It features exclusive content for expats by expats, including articles on living and working abroad, expatriation and repatriation, Third Culture Kids, culture shock and adaptation, international business, world-class cities, travel, and more.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to an American mother and a Spanish father, Alison is an ATCK who grew up in the United States, Holland and France. As an adult, she has lived in Canada, Switzerland and the United States. Currently she is based in Arizona with her French/German husband and their six-month-old baby girl. Even though Alison hasn’t been an expat for several years, she still feels very connected with that life and looks forward to the day when she and her young family cross borders again to travel and live.

Fun fact: Alison and I graduated together at the American School of Paris, and serendipity reconnected us through expat/TCK communities over ten years later! We are living proof of the value of such communities.

* * *

Welcome, Alison, to the Displaced Nation. Due to your father’s job, you grew up largely in Europe, and now you’ve repatriated to the United States. Let’s start by talking about your travels as a young adult. How did you end up in Canada after Europe?
I went to McGill University in Montreal, Canada, for my undergraduate education, where I studied psychology and sociology. I chose McGill because it’s a great school and I loved the city of Montreal—it was the perfect mix of North America and Europe, something I really appreciate even to this day because of my background. Having just lived in France, I found it a good middle step to getting back to the United States (I eventually ended up in Miami). The university is also extremely international, which suited me well having attended international schools for most of my life.

And then you went to Switzerland?
After finishing McGill in 2007, I took a year off and then attended Webster University in Geneva, Switzerland, for a master’s degree in counseling. While there I got involved in magazines, interning at Swiss Style magazine, which caters to expats within Switzerland, and decided I wanted to switch my graduate studies to journalism. That’s how I ended up back in the United States: I headed to the University of Miami (Florida) for a master’s in journalism, which I completed in 2011.

Starting up Global Living Magazine is a huge achievement. What gave you the idea in the first place?
While studying at the University of Miami I was involved in numerous publications and decided I wanted to work in magazines and focus on content I was passionate about: living abroad and the expatriate lifestyle. I created the prototype for Global Living Magazine for my master’s thesis; a month after graduating I founded Global Living and began working on the first issue, published in May 2012. I wanted to start my own publication so I could shape the narrative and focus on topics I see as important for the expat community as a whole, whether you’re an expat in Dubai, Chicago, Kenya or Australia. There is no other publication dedicated to expats worldwide like Global Living Magazine.

It sounds like your TCK upbringing played a big role in creating GLM.
Definitely. Having lived abroad for so much of my life, I was back in the United States and feeling a bit like an outsider in my own country. When I was thinking about starting my own publication, I wanted to make sure I was publishing content that could be useful to those who shared some of these feelings, who, like me, are so strongly connected to the expat community that they would appreciate and benefit from having a new resource.

Nearly five years have passed since the magazine’s launch. How has it evolved?
The magazine has evolved in many ways, both creatively and in terms of content. When I started Global Living I had a strong expat focus but also incorporated a lot of travel articles into the publication. I subsequently cut down on the travel component as I watched the positive response to the expat component grow and take on a life of its own.

As we TCKs know, global living can be glamorous, but it can also make you feel displaced. Does the magazine reflect these two sides of the coin?
Global Living presents a realistic perspective on international living: we present the good, bad and ugly aspects of expat life. While one person’s experience in one country may have been extremely positive, I think it’s also important to share a less positive experience because it’s reality—some assignments go well, some don’t. There are so many different aspects to expat life and Global Living touches on as many as possible in each issue so there is always something for everyone.

Print magazines are having a tough time these days.
Yes, when it started, Global Living was exclusively available in print-on-demand editions through MagCloud; but it can now be read (for free) in the Global Living app. Taking this step to make GLM more accessible worldwide has significantly grown our audience and made it more appealing to expats who are often on the go and can access all our issues on their smartphones or tablets.

Has GLM helped you process your upbringing?
Watching the expat community embrace Global Living has helped me accept my TCK upbringing as something positive. It has given me a foundation I didn’t always feel I had growing up. The magazine has also been an amazing way for me to stay connected and in tune with what is going on in the expat community. The people I have met and worked with through the publication have shaped it (and me) in ways I couldn’t even imagine when I first started. Expats are, in general, a fearless, adaptive, open-minded, accepting, forward-thinking group of people and that has ultimately been my motivation every time I put together a new issue. The response to Global Living has been so inspiring and rewarding as I hear from expats that it has been a wonderful addition to their life, making them feel less alone.

You’re currently based in Arizona, but before you were in DC and Miami. Do you see yourself going abroad again and resuming the expat lifestyle?
My husband is now the expat in the family, as a French/German living in the US. We moved to Arizona based on his job, which could subsequently move us pretty much anywhere in the world. We’d love to have our daughter, Victoria, experience expat life. Most of our immediate family lives outside the United States. I’m sure they would love to be closer to her at some point, too, if that happens.

Ultimately, do you think you might settle somewhere or will you always get “itchy feet”?
Ideally, I’d like to establish a “home base” somewhere in the US to which we could always return—preferably in Washington, DC, which I personally associate the most with “home.” I definitely still get itchy feet when we’re in one place for too long, though, a common TCK and expat experience. When we’re in the States we miss things about Europe and when we’re in Europe we miss things about the US.

“I want GLM readers to feel connected and ‘rooted’ in a global community,” Cavatore says.

Lastly, what are your hopes and future plans for GLM?
I want, and have always wanted, Global Living Magazine to be more than just a form of entertainment for readers—I hope it can be a resource and guide to the expat life. It can be a disorienting life to have many homes and the purpose of Global Living is, in part, to provide a sense of community and identity for those who struggle to find one while immersed in countries away from their “home”. I want people to read through the pages of Global Living and say, “Oh, I know exactly how he/she feels” or “That’s an interesting way to look at that experience” and feel connected and “rooted” in a global community. As far as the future goes: Global Living will continue to explore the latest issues that arise within the expat community and to invite new writers to provide fresh perspectives. Expat experiences vary so vastly, it’s important to include as many perspectives as possible to present a realistic view of living abroad, and repatriating.

Thank you so much, Alison!

* * *

Readers, please leave questions or comments for Alison below. Also be sure to check out Global Living Magazine, which is published every quarter (October, January, April and July). Current and past issues are available for free in the Global Living app. At GLM online, you can read magazine content, extra articles and the popular My Expat Story section. And of course you can follow the magazine on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; co-host of the monthly twitter chat #TCKchat; and TCKchat columnist for Among Worlds magazine. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

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Photo credits:
Interviewee photo and magazine covers were supplied. Photos of Geneva, Paris & Montreal, and the vector of roots are from Pixabay.  Photo of Miami: “South Beach The Carlyle dusk,” by Dan Lundberg via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

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TCK TALENT: Educational theatre specialist Guleraana Mir uses drama to coax out and channel TCK & immigrant stories

Leave a comment Posted by on January 28, 2017

mir-tck-talent
Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with her first Adult Third Culture Kid guest of the new year.

Hello again, fair readers! In this month of dramatic change here in the United States, perhaps you’d like to switch to another kind of drama. My guest this month is writer and educational theatre specialist Guleraana Mir. Among other projects, she has been working on Home Is Where…, an experimental theatre project based on the stories of Third Culture Kids, with Amy Clare Tasker, my very first guest.

Born in London to Pakistani immigrant parents, Guleraana spent the first five years of her life moving between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UK. She recounts her family’s decision to settle back in the UK with humor, explaining:

“There’s a family joke that I returned home from the American nursery in Riyadh with a mixed-up accent, and my dad, proud of his broad Yorkshire twang, said something along the lines of: ‘No child of mine will grow up speaking like that!’ So we immediately made plans to return to the UK so my brother and I could be educated in England.”

As an adult, Guleraana continues to expand her horizons, traveling around and working in South America for a year and then spending two-and-a-half years in the United States. Currently based in London, she engages in a variety of creative endeavors, from leading theatre and creative writing workshops in community settings and schools in the UK, to developing scripts, to producing content for a London-based digital marketing agency, to writing poetry. Her first full-length play was long listed by the BBC Writersroom team in 2014, which seeks out new writers for possible BBC broadcast.

* * *

Welcome, Guleraana, to the Displaced Nation! Let’s start by hearing a little more about your path once you became an adult. What and where did you choose to study at university, and why?
I completed my BA in English and Creative Studies at the University of Portsmouth, in the south of England. I chose that location because it was far away enough to not be in the immediate vicinity of my parents, but close enough to hop on a train home to London. Four years later I chose to study for an MA in Educational Theatre at New York University’s Steinhart School instead of a comparable course in the UK because the dollar was two to the pound, making the cost of studying in the USA was almost affordable. Plus, I was obsessed with New York after visiting the year before. I would have done anything to be able to return for an extended period.

What made you so obsessed with New York, and how does it compare to London?
I can’t tell you how hard I’ve tried to answer these questions in a succinct and tangible way, but it always comes back to this: my obsession with New York is visceral, not something I can rationalize. New York has an energy that inspires and motivates me. London is wonderful, steeped in history and tradition, but its energy is different. In my first semester at New York University, I found myself on the 7th floor of the Student Union Building. I looked out of the window and realized I could see past Washington Square Park all the way up Fifth Avenue. All the way up! It was so long and straight and brightly lit; it seemed infinite and vast, full of magic and possibilities. In London the streets are small and cobbled and windy and you don’t get that sense of size, even though it is a very big city.

Do you think your love for New York also has to do with going to graduate school in that city?
Yes, my passion for New York ultimately has to do with the fact that I first visited at an extremely pivotal moment in my life. I have since written an essay about becoming a woman and an artist, and I attribute 100% of my current confidence to NYC mostly because of all the empowering experiences I had whilst living there. London is my childhood, my safety net, my current state of success. New York sits in the middle of those two states. It’s the place I ran away to and discovered myself, the place I finally felt comfortable being who I am. Whilst I know that London is the right place for me because I could never really live in the USA, every time I think of New York my heart breaks. It’s like the lover you can never let go of, the one that got away.

torn-between-ny-and-london

“Theatre is the art of looking at ourselves” —Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal

Did growing up as a TCK influence your decision to go into theatre?
I grew up not only as a TCK, meaning I spent my early childhood outside my parents’ culture–but also as a CCK, or cross-cultural kid, as I spent the next portion of my childhood living in England with Pakistani parents. These experiences moved me to want to become a human rights lawyer or a journalist, or else pursue European Studies. All I can ever really remember being passionate about was traveling the world and writing, with a heavy emphasis on “changing the world.” While working on my BA, I explored creative and journalistic writing, but ultimately graduated without a concrete career path. I’ve ended up working in educational theatre because it is a combination of things I am good at, and love. I honestly couldn’t see myself doing anything else. 

Has theatre helped you process your TCK upbringing?
As a playwright I can process my mixed-up identity through my characters. Having the opportunity to explore things I’ve experienced on stage is both triggering and cathartic. Luckily I am surrounded by amazing people who also happen to be extraordinarily talented artists, so working with them makes the whole process easier.

You’re currently based in London—are you settled or do you get “itchy feet”?
I will always dream of New York, and Rio, and all the other places I’ve felt “at home”; but London occupies a special place in my heart. It’s where parents and family are, so as long as they’re here, I’m here. Sort of. The itchy feet are constant—but I hate packing. So, we shall see!

“The worst part of holding the memories is the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” —ATCK writer Lois Lowry

You’ve been collaborating with Amy Clare Tasker on Home Is Where…, weaving together the true stories of TCKs with a fictional narrative inspired by our post-Brexit political landscape. What has working with other TCKs meant to you?
Meeting Amy and discovering the term “Third Culture Kid (TCK)” for the first time felt like getting into bed after an exciting night out. Through our work on Home Is Where…, I’ve engaged with so many more TCKs. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction and hearing some of the stories that make up Home Is Where… you realize how true this saying is. Some people have been on such great adventures! Also, as our actors are also TCKs, watching them bring a piece of themselves to the project is very humbling. Each of the stories the drama tells is like a special gift.

I know you and Amy have been experimenting with verbatim theatre. I want to ask you the same question I asked her: how has that process been?
Verbatim theatre is an interesting art form. As Amy explained in her interview, the actors listen to the audio recordings of TCK interviews on stage via headphones—and then repeat exactly what they hear. There’s something so raw and honest about it, but there is also the potential for it to be very static and boring. At the moment Amy and I are working on a way to revamp the piece so the interviews take center stage without the audience getting distracted by all the other things we feel we need to add to create an exciting theatrical experience. Watch this space for updates!

Are you working on anything else at the moment?
I am. My play Coconut is about a British-born Pakistani woman called Rumi who identifies as a “coconut”—a derogatory term for someone who is brown on the outside and white on the inside, i.e., who isn’t deemed culturally Asian enough by the community. The play explores Rumi’s relationship with her heritage and her religion, and we see how far she will go to appease her family. The play has been supported on its development journey by the Park Theatre and New Diorama.

coconut-play

Congratulations on that and on being selected as a Pollock Scholar and a speaker for the 2017 FIGT conference, which takes place March 23-25 in The Hague. Is connecting with global communities important for you on a personal and professional level? What do you hope to gain from this experience?
Thank you, Dounia! Amy and I will be doing a short presentation on Home Is Where… followed by an interactive workshop, something that I’m very passionate about. My expertise is in applied-theatre and I want to show the global community that the creative arts are the perfect way to explore the theme of this year’s FIGT conference: “Creating Your Tribe on the Move.” My hope is that everyone who attends our session will be moved to find a way to bring theatre into the way they work with families and individuals who are experiencing, or have recently experienced, migration.

Thank you so much, Guleraana, for sharing your story of how you got started as an international creative. You have so many exciting irons in the fire, it’s a true inspiration!

* * *

Readers, please leave questions or comments for Guleraana below. Also be sure to visit her Website and connect with her on Twitter, where she likes to tweet about theater, global politics and gifs (tweet her your favorites!). And if you’re headed to the FIGT event in March, be sure to attend her workshop on Friday, March 24.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; co-host of the monthly twitter chat #TCKchat; and TCKchat columnist for Among Worlds magazine. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for the biweekly Displaced Dispatch, a round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and so much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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Photo credits:
Top visual: (clockwise from top left) Guleraana Mir photo, supplied; New Routemaster at Clapton, Hackney, London [mosque in background], by Sludge G via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); “Home Is Where…” performance photo, supplied; and New York University Waverly building, by Benjamin KRAFT via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
New York vs London visual: “Looking across Washington Square Park at Midtown Manhattan, up 5th Avenue,” by Doc Searls via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); and Back Lane, Hampstead, by Dun.can via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Bottom visual: Coconut rehearsal, performance and promo piece, all supplied.

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TCK TALENT: Tanya Crossman takes her talent with mentoring TCKs to the next level: a resource-rich book

Leave a comment Posted by on December 23, 2016


Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with her second Adult Third Culture Kid guest, who has had a particularly productive year.

Hello readers! Welcome back for my second TCK Talent column, where I am happy to introduce author and TCK mentor Tanya Crossman. Tanya is ending 2016 on a high note as this was the year she had her first book published: Misunderstood: The Impact of Growing Up Overseas in the 21st Century (Summertime Press), a work full of insights into the hearts and minds of Third Culture Kids and, for Tanya, a true labor of love.

Tanya is familiar with what it is like to grow up in other cultures from her own experience. Born in Australia, she grew up mostly in Australia (Sydney and Canberra) but also spent two of her teenage years in the USA when her family moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, due to her dad’s IT career. Being a 13-year-old in such a different part of the world played a major role in shaping Tanya’s adult identity. As she put it to fellow Adult Third Culture Kid, Janneke Muyselaar-Jellema, of the DrieCulturen (Dutch for “three cultures”) blog:

I think it showed me there’s a whole world of opportunity out there, and not to limit myself to what is “normal” in Australia.

After completing a Bachelor degree in Asian Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, Tanya moved to Beijing for a study year abroad—and ended up staying for 11 years. During that period she also spent a lot of time in Cambodia. She moved back to Australia about two years ago, where she’s been learning to navigate repatriation while completing a Master’s program in Sydney.

It was during her time in China that Tanya began to work with other Third Culture Kids. This became her passion, and, even now that she is back in her passport country, she continues advocating for TCKs.

* * *

Congratulations, Tanya, on the publication of Misunderstood. That’s an amazing accomplishment! How did you develop the ambition to write your own book on this topic?
Thank you for featuring me, Dounia. As you mentioned, I mentored Third Culture Kids who were living in China for years, listening to them and learning how they felt about life. At a certain point I started receiving requests from parents for advice as well as invitations to speak to interested groups both in China and other places. People would ask for resources, and while I was able to point to some excellent works, I couldn’t find anything that represented the angle I spoke from—so eventually I wrote my own book.

“If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” —Toni Morrison

Tell me, how does Misunderstood differ from other TCK resources?
Misunderstood is different because I act as an advocate and a “voice” for young TCKs. I’m trying to express how they really feel about the experience of growing up in a third culture. They have a different experience of the world to their parents. Recognizing this is essential for giving them the support they need. I interviewed nearly 300 TCKs and surveyed 750 TCKs during the writing process, and there are statistics as well as quotes from this work throughout Misunderstood. I explain the TCK perspective but I also articulate how many of them feel—often in their own words.

Who would you say is the primary audience for the book?
My initial goal was to write for parents, teachers and care workers, but I later re-wrote the contents to cater to young adult TCKs as well. Most of them are processing their childhood experiences and finding their place in the world, and I think it will help them to discover there are other people who have felt the same way, and to be given vocabulary to explain their experiences to others.

tanya-crossman-bridges-gap

I know you were a TCK for just two years, and in another English-speaking culture. But I assume that your experience of living in Connecticut (where I now live, btw!) was also a motive for writing this book? And did writing the book help you process your TCK experience?
Only indirectly. I have to say, I knew nothing about TCKs before I began mentoring them in Beijing. I certainly didn’t connect my two years in the United States to their experiences. Once I got into working with TCKs, I started reading the literature (particularly Pollock and Van Reken’s Third Culture Kids: Growing up Among Worlds). As a result, I began to understand and process what I’d felt while living in Connecticut as a teenager. While my Third Culture experience differed from the teens I was working with, I could see there were points of overlap, which was what had helped me make the initial connection. It gave me a head start in understanding the landscape of their inner lives.

What are your hopes for Misunderstood?
My biggest hope is that it ends up in the hands of people around the world who will find it helpful. I want young TCKs to read it and feel understood and empowered. I want parents to read it and feel encouraged because they are able to see their children’s experiences in a new light. Already I am getting responses from TCKs, parents and other expatriate advocates, sharing the ways in which Misunderstood has encouraged or challenged them. That sort of feedback is exciting and humbling. It makes it all worth it.

“Australia doesn’t really feel like “home” anymore. Beijing feels like home…” —Tanya Crossman

You recently repatriated to Australia—how has that experience been?
Repatriation has been HARD!! The first three months I hardly left my room unless I had to. After about ten months I had this feeling of “waking up” and feeling like a person again. It’s really only in the last couple of months that I’ve started to feel anywhere near normal. I’ve been here almost two years now, and although I feel settled enough in my current life, it does feel quite temporary—although that’s partly because I’m in a program of study, which gives me a concrete end date (about a year from now). I definitely expect to head overseas again after that, though I’m open to staying in Australia if the right opportunity comes up.

If you do end up settling in Australia, aren’t you afraid you may get “itchy feet”?
I get itchy feet if I don’t get on a plane every few months, no matter where I’m living! I’ve managed to make two overseas trips in the two years I’ve been back, and I have another planned in a few months’ time.

tanya-crossman-itchy-feet

Are you working on anything new at the moment? Are there plans for a second book?
Mostly I’m working on my completing my master’s degree, though I do have a side project looking at creating reading guides for Misunderstood—in large part prompted by conversations with a few expat mums (in China, South Africa and Thailand) who were interested in using Misunderstood for group discussions.

Please share any other information or links you would like our readers to know about.
There are lots of great resources about TCKs out there, including some great books released in the last five years. Other than the classic Third Culture Kids which I mentioned before, the books I recommend most often are:

Another great resource is Ellen Mahoney’s TCK mentoring organization Sea Change Mentoring.

It’s generous of you to cite these additional resources for us. Thanks so much, Tanya, for this interview!

* * *

Readers, please leave questions or comments for Tanya Crossman below. If you’re interested in learning more about her book, please visit Tanya’s author site. You can also connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; co-host of the monthly twitter chat #TCKchat; and TCKchat columnist for Among Worlds magazine. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for the biweekly Displaced Dispatch, a round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and so much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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Photo credits: Photos of Tanya supplied. All other photos from Pixabay with exception of Greenwich photo in first collage: Greenwich, Connecticut, by Doug Kerr via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

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TCK TALENT: Amy Clare Tasker finds a home, and a place to explore concepts of home, in the theater/re

2 Comments Posted by on October 15, 2016

tck-talent-amy-c-tasker
New TCK columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is here with her first guest, another Adult Third Culture Kid who, like Dounia’s predecessor, Lisa Liang, has a passion for theater.

Hello readers! I’m thrilled to be contributing the TCK Talent column and thought it fitting that my first interviewee, Amy Clare Tasker, works in the performing arts—like my predecessor, Lisa Liang. I had the pleasure of meeting Amy at this year’s 2016 Families in Global Transition Conference, where she was one of the 2016 Pollock Scholars.

Amy is a theater director, writer, producer and performer. Born in Britain, Amy moved to California (the Bay Area) with her family at a young age, where they settled and eventually became US citizens, leading her to initially “identify more as an immigrant than as a TCK.” She pursued a drama degree at the University of California, Irvine, with a year abroad at the University of Manchester, her father’s alma mater and about 20 minutes from where she was born.

In 2013, Amy moved to London, “repatriating” after many years “abroad”. She is now exploring TCK/CCK identity through theater.

* * *

Did growing up as a TCK influence your decision to go into theater, and how has it helped you process your TCK upbringing?
For my thesis project at UC Irvine, I wrote a play called Hyphenated. It was the first time I used theater to explore my British-Americanness—it’s a collection of autobiographical vignettes about my family, strung together with narration from an “Amy” character. I had the idea I could go back to where I was born and find the piece of myself that was missing—and finish my degree while I was at it.

How long ago was that?
This was nearly a decade ago, when I was just beginning to process my dual identity. I hadn’t yet embraced the concept of the Third Culture Kid, or TCK, as I wasn’t able to identify any real-life TCKs beyond myself and my sisters—and we’re not a perfect fit for the academic definition. I was still looking for the right word for who I was, when my confusion finally led me to the community of TCKs and CCKs (Cross-Cultural Kids). I’ve found a remarkable sense of kinship with people who have lived in those same liminal spaces. We recognize that shared emotional geography, even if we’ve never set foot on the same patches of earth. Since moving to London I’ve really embraced being part of the TCK/CCK community—and theater has been a big part of that, with the development of my own performance lab and a new piece, Home Is Where.

“You know where a lot of my family lives? England!”

I understand you’ve been in London for just over three years. What led to your decision to move eight time zones away from where your immediate family lives?
The decision to move came like a bolt of lightning at the end of Directors Lab West—a one-week intensive workshop I attended in 2012. The experience inspired and challenged me and got me thinking about my career. I have a habit of making major decisions through powerful gut instinct (and then rationalizing them at length afterwards, as I did in this blog post). Besides, I have grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in this part of the world.

Since making the move, have you ever gotten “itchy feet”?
I don’t think I get “itchy feet”. Unlike many of my fellow TCKs, I didn’t grow up with high mobility. I never developed that internal clock telling me it’s time to move on again. But still, I often wonder what my life would be like somewhere else in the world, what friends I haven’t met because I’m still here, what opportunities I’m missing out on, what other languages I might know if I hadn’t settled in English-speaking places all my life… But I also want roots.

Is London “home”?
London could be home. I accept I will never be as English as a person who grew up in England, but at least my accent doesn’t stick out here because everyone sounds different. It’s a great base for visiting and working in other European cities… I can see myself staying.

“Directing collaboratively is ‘upholding something with an open hand.’”

Tell me about Home Is Where. What led you to create this particular theater piece?
Whereas Hyphenated was motivated by finding my personal sense of self and cultural identity, Home Is Where is about trying to find a sense of belonging in the context of a global community. It’s also about reaching out to non-TCKs who are curious about these people who move around and get their cultures all mixed up.

I understand the creative process for Home Is Where has involved extensive collaboration?
The process started with identifying fellow TCK and CCK collaborators, and interviewing dozens of people about their cross-cultural experiences. Both the cast and the creative team have contributed ideas for the story, characters, and performance style. Collaboration on this scale is a challenging way to work—but it’s also exhilarating, and creates something unique to this group of people. All twelve of us bring our own cultural identities and diverse artistic backgrounds to the performance, be it music, movement, multimedia, or other styles of theater. The actors weave together their own international experiences with verbatim interviews from fellow cultural hybrids.

It sounds exciting but also a little daunting.
It’s the largest team I’ve ever led, and also the most technically ambitious project I’ve ever attempted. We’re using a technique called headphone verbatim: the actors are listening to the audio recordings of the interviews on stage, and repeating exactly what they hear. That way, the audience can hear exactly what TCKs told us in their interviews. We’re also extending our storytelling outside of the theater. Clips from all our interviews are available on our Online Oral History Library.

What are your hopes and plans for Home Is Where?
We’re still developing the play, finding the best structure to showcase the TCK stories we’ve gathered. At the start of last month we presented a work-in-progress performance in a space in London’s East End; it was set in a futuristic anti-immigration dystopia, inspired by the Brexit vote here in the UK. In an earlier version, we set the interviews in a fictional TCK Embassy—riffing off the idea of the Global Citizen. Right now, we’re in a new script development phase. Hopefully early next year we’ll be back in rehearsal to create the next version of the piece. Ultimately, we’re aiming for a full production in London and then touring around the UK (and maybe even further afield—stay tuned!).

scenes-from-home-is-where

“Five Helens look into a mirror, asking: ‘Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?’”

Are you working on anything else?
I’ve been working on a project about Helen of Troy since 2010, when I started writing with my friend Megan Cohen, a brilliant playwright based in San Francisco. The Helen Project consists of fragments of monologue exploring the myth, icon, and real life of Helen of Troy. We’ve produced a few different “editions” with five actors in both San Francisco and London. I’m currently reshaping it into a solo show, with the idea of directing an immersive performance installation version at some point…

The story of Helen of Troy sounds a far cry removed from the TCK scene.
You know, about two years after we started writing it, I realized it’s also a TCK story. At the end of the Trojan War, our Helen says:

I came home to Sparta. Sparta, where you call me Helen of Troy. In Troy, they called me Helen of Sparta. Or just “the Greek woman”. No one will own me. I don’t belong anywhere.

the-helen-project-2

* * *

Thank you so much, Amy!

Readers, please leave questions or comments for Amy below. You can follow her progress on her Performance Lab site, Facebook and Twitter, where she uses two handles: @AmyClareTasker and @wearehyphenated. Interested in Home Is Where? Read more about it here, and don’t forget you can listen to the TCK interviews at the Online Oral History Library.

Editor’s note: The subheds were taken from Amy Clare Tasker’s blog posts. 

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; co-host of the monthly twitter chat #TCKchat; and TCKchat columnist for Among Worlds magazine. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

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Photo credits: Top visual: (top row) London Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge and tragedy/comedy photos are from Pixabay; and photo of Amy Clare Tasker (supplied). Middle visual: Scenes from Home Is Where and flyer for September performance (supplied). Bottom visual: Bust of Helen of Troy by Antonio Canova at Victoria and Albert Museum, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Yair Haklai (CC BY-SA 3.0); and scene from The Helen Project (supplied).

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TCK TALENT: The talented Lisa Liang goes to Asia with her one-woman show about growing up everywhere

2 Comments Posted by on July 29, 2016

TCK Talent in Singapore

Columnist Elizabeth (Lisa) Liang has a “first” and a “last” to announce in this post. She will tell us all about what happened when she took her show, Alien Citizen, to Asia for the first time. But she will also tell us that this is her last regular column for the Displaced Nation. Having known her for three years (we even met in person once, when her show was in New York), I will miss interacting with her as well as reading her columns. But as is characteristic of her, she has kindly recruited a replacement. The show will go on! —ML Awanohara

Greetings, dear readers.

As ML just said, this will be my last article for TCK Talent. I’ll be moving on to devote more time to my solo shows, workshops, and acting career.

Starting in September, the column will be carried on by Dounia Bertuccelli, last month’s multi-talented interviewee. I know the column will thrive under her charge.

As ML also said, for my last post I’ll be presenting an account of the journey I made to Singapore in April to perform Alien Citizen: an earth odyssey—my one-woman show about growing up as a Third Culture Kid of mixed heritage.

It was my first time taking the show to Asia. I performed it for Third Culture Kid (TCK) high school students and their parents (many of whom had also been TCKs), teachers, and administrators, at two international schools.

* * *

Two miracles occurred on the flights to Singapore: I was in no pain despite a lower-back injury, and Dan (my husband and techie extraordinaire) and I both fell asleep! We normally can’t sleep on planes no matter what.

Unfortunately, we also experienced something troubling: my ankles and calves swelled up alarmingly. We guessed that this might be due to my choosing the Chinese options at mealtimes, which were tasty…but perhaps a foolish decision on my part since I’m mildly allergic to MSG.

(For details on the health scare that ensued, read my blog.)

Landing in a tropical city full of gardens and great food

Swollen body parts notwithstanding, we oooohed and aaaahed when we arrived at fancy Changi Airport, but were too tired to linger. As the cab drove us through the city-state to our AirBnB apartment, we were impressed by the many tall buildings and the lushly green urban landscape.

After that evening’s health melodrama, we slept like the dead. We had a few days to orient ourselves, sightsee, and start recovering from jet lag. I was expecting the heat of Panama alongside the humidity, but Singapore felt more humid than hot. (We perspired buckets nonetheless.)

Our adventures during the first two full days included:

  • visiting the lovely, peaceful Chinese Garden…in the pouring rain…with one umbrella. (Dan had accidentally left his in the Uber car.) Despite the deluge, we were impressed by the Confucius statues and the Bonsai Garden.
  • taking the immaculate and orderly MRT (metro). We loved hearing the train’s prerecorded announcements in Standard RP English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.
  • exploring the interior of the enormous ION Orchard, a mall on Orchard Road. (It was still raining outside.)
  • ordering Malay and Indian food at a hawker stall in a mall near our AirBnB. (Singapore malls have food courts that serve the same scrumptious food you’d get at one of the famous hawker centres.)
  • trying a local dessert of shaved ice topped with red beans, black jello, and syrup—sort of a combo of Ice Kachang and Grass Jelly. Super-sweet!
  • experiencing Singapore’s favorite breakfast/snack at Toast Junction: kaya toast (sugar-coconut-buttered toast) served with two soft-boiled eggs, dribbled with a little bit of soy sauce, and a cup of hot coffee with condensed milk. Even if you’re not a fan of soft-boiled eggs (neither am I) or milk in your coffee (neither is Dan), we’re here to tell you that the whole combination is fantastic.

SHOWTIME #1 @ Canadian International School

On the first performance day we were up at 5:30 a.m. (The horror.) Our cab took us to Canadian International School in the pre-dawn darkness. In the impressively large and beautiful theatre, the school’s cheerful stage techie helped us to set up. I was warmly welcomed by a few faculty and admin members—and then the 9th through 11th graders started pouring in.

Showtime!

At first the audience was very quiet yet attentive. Some whispering began after 20 minutes and slowly grew louder until there was a low murmur toward the end.

Nonetheless, the students giggled and laughed at various appropriate places, and at the curtain call I heard a few hoots of appreciation along with the applause.

This was a relief because I rarely know how the show has been received until I take my bow. Afterward, drama teacher Julie and a slew of ATCKs (who are now moms to TCKs!) thanked me repeatedly for bringing the show to the school. I was especially validated by Julie’s appreciation of the script and performance since she’s a fellow theatre-maker.

As has happened after all of my performances, audience members approached to tell me about their own intercultural, nomadic lives and which parts of the show resonated the most for them.

One of them was a friend of a fellow Writing Out of Limbo author—thus proving how small the world is!

I loved hearing American accents from the non-US citizens and non-American accents from the US citizens. It made me feel like I was among my people, with that particular vibe of an international-school crowd, again.

My dear college friend Kikuko flew in from Tokyo just to see the show and flew back directly after, which blew my mind!

I learned later that the head of the school and the secondary school principal both enjoyed the show as well—always affirming to receive praise from the “top admin.” I will forever be grateful to Canadian International School for giving Alien Citizen its Asia Pacific debut.

As usual, my adrenaline was still pumping after the show, so Dan and I headed off to the Singapore National Museum. It had beautiful artifacts and displays, dense with information…and then we went home and crashed.
CIS performance

More marvels in this dot-sized city-state

On our day in between performances, we explored Little India. We saw our first Buddhist and Hindu temples, all of which were gorgeously colorful: Leong San See (Chinese Buddhist), Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya (Thai Buddhist with a huge Buddha statue), and Sri Srinivasa Perumal (Hindu). Each was a marvel for uninitiated us. We also saw the Sultan Mosque, which was more modest than the mosques I’ve toured elsewhere, but very welcoming to visitors.

It was another warm day and the humidity began to take its toll. Still, I enjoyed seeing the brightly painted two-story houses all walled together (like the one-story ones you see in Guatemala and other Latin American countries), with open shutters on the upper floors like in Cape Town.

When the humidity became overpowering, it was a pleasure to duck into a 7-Eleven (!) that blasted air conditioning—a/c is paramount in Singapore. We had lunch at Muthu’s Curry, where the delicious food was served on banana leaves. After waddling out we took an Uber to Arab Street and walked by tons of shops on the pedestrian road. At Sifr Aromatics I bought some blended-in-person Shadowfax perfume, which I adore.

In between shows

SHOWTIME #2 @ Singapore American School

The next day we went to Singapore American School for my afternoon performance. The high school drama teacher, Tom, gave us a warm welcome. I would perform in one of three theatres on campus, which had a luxurious backstage area—aisles upon aisles of dressing-room vanity mirrors and a full bathroom! The school’s theatre techies were very professional and helpful.

During the performance, the audience was alert and even laughed heartily at a few points. Afterward, some audience members came up to praise the show and a faculty member gave me an emotional bear hug. (Every time an audience member shows that much appreciation, it’s a relief, because it highlights the show’s value for different people in different places even as time wears on. I never know if there’s going to be an expiration date.)

Again, it was especially validating to hear a fellow theatre-maker like Tom speak of the craft that goes into creating and performing a show like Alien Citizen. I’ve performed it so many times in non-theatrical venues that I’ve become resigned to folks who refer to the show as a “sketch.”

For those unfamiliar with my work: I perform over 30 characters (including myself at different ages), speak five languages in it, and take the audience through six countries while I’m all alone onstage…with no intermission…for 80 minutes. It’s my job to make it flow and feel intimate, but it has never been an easy one.

An old friend of my mom from my high school years in Egypt (it seems that everyone knows someone in Singapore) took Dan and me out for drinks and dinner afterwards to celebrate. We went to the American Club, which is humongous with several restaurants, a pool, library, convenience store, dry cleaner, and more—I’ve never seen anything like it. They make an excellent martini…
SAS performance

Final hurrah: Singapore

The next day: freedom! Now we could do whatever we wanted for the rest of the trip! We took the MRT to the old colonial district, where we visited the Merlion, Cavanagh Bridge, and the Asian Civilisations Museum. The latter had a fascinating shipwreck exhibit as well as a collection of gorgeous ceramics.

The next stop was Raffles Hotel for high tea. We each indulged in two servings of tiered tea trays of finger sandwiches, cakes, and tarts. The meal also included a buffet of dim sum (!), croque monsieurs, chicken pot pies, and scones. (By now you’ve figured out: I’m all about the food.) After stuffing ourselves to the sound of a musician playing musical theatre tunes on a harp, we peaked into the famous Long Bar. We decided against ordering an overpriced Singapore Sling and took an Uber home.

The following day we visited Chinatown. We loved the Chinese Heritage Centre, which recreates what a shophouse was like in the 1950s—very immersive and expertly done. There were tons of places to shop for knickknacks. We had lunch at Fill-a-Pita, my high-school-mate Hassan’s eatery, where he served us delicious vegetarian Egyptian/Middle Eastern food. Singapore is a true hub for international folk.

We then walked through the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which were lush and peaceful. (They are the only tropical gardens to be honored as a UNESCO Heritage site.) That evening we went to the famous Wee Nam Kee for a dinner of Hainanese chicken rice, Singapore’s wildly popular and yummy comfort food.

The next day we visited Liang Seah Street, which was recommended for its young vibe. I enjoyed seeing my surname on street signs! We returned to Chinatown to visit Singapore’s oldest Hokkien temple, Thian Hock Keng, the interior of which reminded me vaguely of my extended family’s “big house” in Guatemala City (tiled floor around an open sky patio). We then walked to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple with its splendid interior. We were privileged to witness our first Buddhist service there.

That evening we went to the Night Safari, said to be the world’s first nocturnal zoo. Tip: get your tickets online to avoid a two-hour wait. It was fun to see nocturnal animals (and non-nocturnal animals, asleep) from all over the world as we were driven through on long trams. The elephants may have been the most thrilling sight. I had seen them and other animals on wildlife preserves in Kenya when I was 15, but that was a very long time ago. Alien Citizen’s final scene is set in Kenya, so there was a nice symmetry to seeing African animals on this trip.

On our last day we returned to Orchard Road. This time the sun was shining and we could see why it’s sometimes compared to the Champs d’Elysees or 5th Avenue. From there we went to the Peranakan Museum, which is basically the mixed heritage/multiracial/multicultural museum of Singapore. I felt very at home!

For our last adventure in the city, we took a Singapore River tour on a bumboat, the kind with a cheesy prerecorded commentary. I’m so glad we did, because we saw a completely different Singapore from the one we had been experiencing on the MRT and in cabs. It really is lovely along the banks of the quays and bays at twilight.

We capped the evening off by going to the Flight Bar at the Marina Bay Sands, a Vegas-style, three-towered behemoth of a hotel. Despite our sweaty, bedraggled appearance, we were given excellent service: they seated us at a perfect table overlooking both the bay and the city skyline. We toasted with my French “57” (its version of the drink that was originally served at the American Bar in Paris, later Harry’s New York Bar) and Dan’s Dark ‘N’ Stormy—overpriced but nonetheless a delightful VERY FINAL hurrah. After that celebratory toast, we managed to find one open restaurant, CoCo ICHIBANYA curry house, and gave that Japanese curry hell.

On our day of departure, after checking in at Changi Airport, we headed down to its ginormous food court and got our last kaya toast “Set A” at Ya Kun Kaya Toast. It was glorious. As we walked to our gate, we saw more of the deluxe airport, took pictures, and then had uneventful flights home. It took over two weeks to recover from the jet lag. It was worth it.

Final hurrah: TCK TALENT

It seems fitting for my last entry to be about Alien Citizen. I was first introduced to The Displaced Nation via an interview by amazing founder and editor ML Awanohara, when Alien Citizen was having its world premiere in Hollywood in 2013. ML asked me to write this column not long after the show’s first run ended, and it has been an honor to interview numerous fellow creative ATCKs for TCK Talent. They have all inspired, touched, and educated me. In the meantime, Alien Citizen has traveled around the USA on the college circuit, to festivals and conferences, and to private retreats and galas. It has also traveled the world to theatres, conferences, and international schools in Central America, Iceland, Europe, Africa, and now Asia. Furthermore, it was the catalyst for the workshops I now lead. We’ve come a very long way and we’re not even close to finishing the journey.

I feel privileged to have written for The Displaced Nation and am ever grateful to ML Awanohara for giving me the opportunity. Thank you, dear readers, for following along.

* * *

Thank YOU, Lisa, and the fondest of farewells! I will miss you. You really “got” what the Displaced Nation is about and over the years have showcased so many internationals who are now leading creative lives. You’ve also served as a shining example of that yourself, by reporting on the progress of your show—and several of those reports, like this one, have also been fascinating travelogues. I’m just so glad that the column you have created and shaped, highlighting the many talents of Adult Third Culture kids, will carry on in your wake. (Thank you, Dounia!) Meantime, please promise us you’ll come back to our fair shores from time to time for a visit—and perhaps even the occasional update post. Readers, please leave questions, comments, words of farewell 😥 😥 😥 to Lisa below.

Elizabeth (Lisa) Liang is a prime example of what she writes about in this column: an Adult Third Culture Kid working in a creative field. A Guatemalan-American of Chinese-Spanish-Irish-French-German-English descent, she is an actor, writer, and producer who created the solo show Alien Citizen: an earth odyssey, which has been touring internationally. To keep up with Lisa’s progress, be sure to visit her blog, Suitcasefactory. You can also follow her on Twitter and on Facebook.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, and so much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Related posts:

Photo credits: Top visual: Singapore cityscape and garden images via Pixabay;  Elizabeth Liang performing at the Canadian International School in Singapore, by Jacquie Weber (supplied); Alien Citizen (poster, supplied); and TCK Talent branding. Second visual: (clockwise from top left) Kaya Toast “Set A” breakfast at Toast Junction, by Daniel Lawrence (supplied); MRT image via Pixabay; Lisa at the ION Mall, selfie (supplied); and Chinese and Japanese gardens, Bonsai section, Singapore, by R Barraez D’Lucca via Flickr (CC BY 2.0). Third visual: Lisa performing at the Canadian International School in Singapore, by Jacquie Weber (supplied). Fourth visual: (clockwise from top left) Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple via Pixabay; Daniel Lawrence in front of Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple, by Lisa Liang (supplied); Muthu’s fish head curry, by Krista, and Arab Street and Sunday lunch, by Bryn Pinzgauer—both via Flickr (CC BY 2.0). Fifth visual: Singapore American School dressing room, selfie (supplied); and Singapore American School long shot, by Daniel Lawrence (supplied). Sixth visual: (top row) Lisa at Flight Bar, Marina Bay Sands Hotel, by Daniel Lawrence (supplied); and Elephant at Night – Night Safari Zoo – Singapore, by Glen Bowman via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); (middle row) Lisa at the Merlion, by Daniel Lawrence (supplied); one of many buddhas in Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, by Lisa Liang (supplied); (bottom row) Changi Airport departure, by Lisa Liang (supplied); High Tea, Raffles Hotel, by llbrarianidol via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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TCK TALENT: Dounia Bertuccelli, writer, editor, mentor and #TCKchat co-host

4 Comments Posted by on June 10, 2016

Dounia Bertuccelli TCK Talent

Columnist Elizabeth (Lisa) Liang‘s guest this month is a TCK of Lebanese origin, who has lived almost everywhere apart from Lebanon!

Greetings, readers. Today’s interviewee is Dounia Bertuccelli, writer, editor, mentor, and one of the moderators of #TCKchat, a Twitter chat for TCK kids around the globe. I first met Dounia at the Families in Global Transition 2014 conference, where she was a Parfitt Pascoe Writing Residency scholar and I was performing Alien Citizen: an earth odyssey as the final keynote. Since then, Dounia’s writing and my show have had positive trajectories, so I feel like our paths are parallel.

Dounia was born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents—but has never lived in Lebanon. Her father worked for a US-based company with branches around the world, and Dounia spent her childhood and pre-teen years in the USA (Wisconsin), Mexico, and the Philippines, and her teens in Australia and France.

As an adult, Dounia has studied/lived in the U.K., France and the United States. She earned her undergraduate degree in History/Geography at Institut Catholique de Paris (actually not a religious institute) and her BA in History at the Sorbonne. After taking a year to work, she enrolled in the University of Surrey in the UK to pursue an MA in European Politics, Business and Law. She worked in France again for a while. Her latest move was to Connecticut six years ago with her husband, who also grew up as a TCK, for his job.

It’s a pleasure to interview Dounia for The Displaced Nation.

* * *

Welcome, Dounia. Your peripatetic, multilingual childhood must have included so many adventures and challenges. Were you happiest in a certain place at a certain time, and if so, why? 
That’s a really great and interesting question! It’s also a tough one but here goes… As a teenager, I found the two years I lived in Australia to be the happiest and most carefree. We moved there from the Philippines (where safety was an issue, especially for foreigners), and our newfound freedom was exhilarating. As a teenager, it was the ideal place: it was safe, and we had sunshine, beach and friends. Initially it was a very difficult transition, but once I settled in, I loved it—and it remains a very positive memory. As an adult, I have been happiest living in Paris. It’s where I’ve felt the most sense of belonging. I still don’t feel 100% like I belong there and I can still feel like an outsider—but less so than everywhere else. Paris is beautiful, vibrant and truly taught me independence. I also met the love of my life there, and it is where my family has settled down, so it will always hold a special place in my heart.

Do you identify most with a particular culture or cultures or with people who have similar interests and perhaps similar cross-cultural backgrounds?  
There is no black-and-white answer here. A lot of it comes down to the individual and their family background. I definitely identify with people who have similar cross-cultural/global-living backgrounds because there is an unspoken understanding and connection. But I also identify with those who come from a similar heritage and familial background. Not necessarily the same origin, but who were brought up with similar values and family ties.

“I long for somewhere,/ without knowing where.”

How do you like living in Connecticut?
It’s been a mixed experience. People have been nice and we live in a cute small town…but there is very little diversity and, although we may look and sound like everyone else, we are very different. That has made it difficult to meet people we connect with and to feel as though we belong. It’s also tough to live in a small American town after living in Paris for 10 years and having access to other European cities. And it’s definitely not easy being across the ocean from my parents and siblings.

Did your TCK upbringing inform your choice to become a writer—and has writing helped you to process your TCK upbringing?
I have always written, but I don’t know if that comes from my TCK upbringing or if it’s just my character. I think writing has helped me process my TCK experiences, as it has helped me process most things in my life. I’ve always written to express myself, to put my thoughts and emotions on paper—through journals, prose and poetry. As I was growing up I wrote about everyday life, and also during every move, in airports between homes and everything else in between. I still do that and I think it’s definitely helped me process my experiences as an adult TCK.
Heart vs home

“And yet I long to settle,/ To put down roots.”

As an ATCK, do you now have “itchy feet” or do you prefer to have a home base and only travel for pleasure?
I think it’s a bit of both. I’ve been in the same place for 5.5 years and that’s long. I’m ready for a change and to be somewhere new. But at the same time I’m not sure I want the constant upheaval of frequent moves. I think I would like to settle and have a home base, but only somewhere special to me and where I can also travel easily. Even if I settled down somewhere, I would need to travel frequently to feel the thrill of the unfamiliar, see new places and keep those “itchy feet” content.

Are you working on anything at the moment?
I have my ongoing work as a freelance writer and editor—I am the Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine. In addition, I’m working on a variety of projects: I’m a moderator for #TCKchat (a twitter chat for TCKs around the globe); I write the TCKchat column for Among Worlds; and I work with the Parfitt Pascoe Writing Residency scholars as their mentor and editor (as you mentioned at the outset, it’s a scholarship program for new TCK/expat writers to attend and write about the Families in Global Transition Conference). You can find all my published works on my blog as well as on my LinkedIn page. It’s collection of non-fiction prose, poetry, occasional book reviews and photography.

* * *

Thank you so much, Dounia. Readers, please leave questions or comments for Dounia below. You can also follow her on Twitter, where you’ll be led into the monthly #TCKchats (#TCKchat is held on the 1st Wednesday/Thursday of each month with 2 sessions: 1st session at 15:00 GMT and 2nd session at 3:00 +1 GMT). And be sure to take a look at her creative works on her blog, the aptly named Next Stop.

Editor’s note: The two quotes are from Dounia Bertuccelli’s poem “Longing,” which was first published on her blog in 2014 and also appeared in Among Worlds (December 2015), a magazine for Adult Third Culture Kids (ATCKs).

Elizabeth (Lisa) Liang is a prime example of what she writes about in this column: an Adult Third Culture Kid working in a creative field. A Guatemalan-American of Chinese-Spanish-Irish-French-German-English descent, she is an actor, writer, and producer who created the solo show Alien Citizen: an earth odyssey, which has been touring internationally. And now she is working on another show, which we hope to hear more about soon! To keep up with Lisa’s progress in between her columns, be sure to visit her blog, Suitcasefactory. You can also follow her on Twitter and on Facebook.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, and so much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Related posts:

Photo credits: Top visual: (top row) Eiffel Tower image via Pixabay; Coat of arms of the former university of Paris, France (Sorbonne), by Katepanomegas via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0); Connecticut 1980 camper trailer plate, by Jerry “Woody” via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); and Dounia Bertuccelli (supplied); (bottom row) Lebanon via Pixabay; Selimiye Mosque (originally the Cathedral of Sainte Sophie), in Nicosia, Cyprus, by Chris06 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0); and The Surrey Scholar in Guildford, by Mike Peel via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Middle visual: House and heart images via Pixabay; Avenue des Champs-Élysées photo via Pixabay; Hartford, Connecticut by Doug Kerr via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0). Bottom visual: Writing and photography images via Pixabay.

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