Welcome to The Reluctant Parisian. I am a novelist by trade, an Alabamian by birth, and a Californian at heart. I am also a wife and mother. I started this blog to chronicle my family’s move from the San Francisco Bay Area to Paris.
Update: I wrote this blog while living in Paris for two years beginning in 2018. As I work on a book about our family’s time there, I’ve taken many of the posts down. The remaining posts should give you a glimpse of expat life in Paris during the Yellow Vests, the biggest transit strike in 70 years, and a pandemic.
About the move (Summer, 2018): While we’re excited for the adventure, we’re not exactly expecting a romantic vacation. Northern California is an easy place to live. Between the mild weather, the excellent food, and the endless coastlines, it’s also an easy place to love. When we moved here from New York City in 1999, I swore I would never live anywhere else. Picking up and moving to a bustling city in a country where we don’t speak the language is exciting, but we know it will be challenging. Which is why I call this blog, with all due respect to the beautiful city that has inspired lovers, artists, and writers for centuries, The Reluctant Parisian.
A note on the title & the pleasures of non-gendered vocabulary: If you’re wondering why it’s The Reluctant Parisian instead of The Reluctant Parisienne, it’s not a typo. In French, a woman who lives in Paris is une Parisienne, and un Parisian refers to a male. However, in English we don’t generally differentiate between feminine and masculine nouns, so a Parisian can be male or female. (Also, shirts, trees, and forks don’t need a gender, which makes things much simpler.) Since this blog is written in English, I chose the English spelling for the title. But don’t worry! When in France, I will not claim to be a Frenchman.
My books: You’ll find my novels and story collections in English here.
a bientôt…
Oct. 15, 2017
