Growing up, I was fascinated with words. I enjoyed reading things aloud, contemplating the sound and rhythm: truck sides, billboards, newspaper ads, and everything around me. My father was an amateur storyteller, genealogist and antiquarian. His love for the tale and making it tall and strong, his interest in the past, the odd, the interesting and the obscure, and his emphasis on the importance of all things infinitesimal planted a seed in me that I did not recognize until I was fourteen, when I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and decided that I wanted to become a writer. I had always enjoyed writing, and did a lot of it, but never considered it potential profession until that bullet burrowed its way into Gatsby's elegant frame. I can say that I do not regret the decision, and have never for a single moment.

I have been writing for the better part of my life and consider it a great passion. It took me to New York City where I studied English and Creative Writing at New York University. It took me to France and Spain, Italy and Amsterdam where I filled copious Moleskine notebooks. It took me to garage sales and flea markets, junk barns and antique shops in search of the perfect Olivetti 32 and, now, it has taken me to Budapest, where I will make my next home as an expat, like so many of the writers that shaped me.


1. When did you arrive in Hungary and what brought you here?
I arrived in Hungary on August, 13th (18 days ago). I was living in New York where my pockets were endlessly empty and I decided, while I love New York City and always will, that it wasn't the place for me right now. I could travel to a place I had never been for less than it was costing me to stay put. And so I came here, to a place with a rich history and a rich future.

2. Have you ever been an expatriate elsewhere?
No, but I've always been enamored of the romance of the idea. It was instilled in me by many of my favorite writers: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Miller, Ginsberg and others.

3. What surprised you most about Hungary?
The architechture is so art deco. To me, it evokes Paris and Barcelona, rather than the Orientalist tinge I expected to dominate.

4. Friends are in Budapest for a weekend - what must they absolutely see and do?
I am still new here, but I'd say the baths, the romkocsmas, and the parks. The opportunities for leisure are impeccable.

5. What is your favourite Hungarian food?
A bit staid, but goulash.

6. What is never missing from your refrigerator?
Wine, beer, mushrooms, half an onion and a little tej.

7. What is your favourite Hungarian word?
I haven't found it yet. I'll let you know.

8. What do you miss the most from home?
Musical instruments, namely the drum kit. It is the apex of physical expression in music. There is nothing quite like it.

9. What career other than yours would you love to pursue?
Professional musician. I am a writer at the moment and, while I love it to death, there is little I enjoy more than making music. I can't imagine a better life than one with music composition at its center.

10. What's a job you would definitely never want?
Anything involving waste or hard labor.

11. Where did you spend your last vacation?
Barcelona. Good God, what a city. The jazz there is astounding.

12. Where do you hope to spend your next one?
Indonesia.

13. What was your favourite band, film, or hobby as a teen?
Band: Bob Dylan. Film: Taxi Driver. Hobby: Writing, playing in bands and frisbee. Little has changed.

14. What can't you resist?
Sounds, words, and the sounds of words.

15. Red wine or white?
Belgian beer, but red will suffice.

16. Book or movie?
Book. Preferably fiction and written by a notorious lothario or misanthrope.

17. Morning person or night person?
Night. There is no contest.

18. Which social issue do you feel most strongly about?
Aid for the mentally and physically disadvantaged and disabled.

19. Buda side or Pest side?
Pest.

20. What would you say is your personal motto?
Think.