Ilse Munro was born in Latvia and came to the United States as a war refugee. She was a NASA and Defense Department consultant, then the online editor at Little Patuxent Review and the prose editor at BrickHouse Books. Her short fiction, collected in Cold and Hungry and Far From Home, appears in TriQuarterly, Atticus Review and Wake and made her a finalist in the Glimmer Train Family Matters Contest and Short Story Award for New Writers. Her novel Anna Noon is in the works. She lives in a historic millworker’s house on Maryland's Patapsco River. For more, see http://ilsemunro.com.
Dinaw Mengestu in Washington, DC in 2012 (Source: Getty Images)
“What was it my father used to say? A bird stuck between two branches gets bitten on both wings. I would like to add my own saying to the list now, Father: a man stuck between two worlds lives and dies alone. I have dangled and been suspended long enough.”
“Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.”
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