COMING SOON
I’m so excited to share the mockup cover for Outsiders in France, the long awaited sequel to my first book. Like Newcomers in an Ancient Land, it’s part travelog and part self-exploration, but this time set France – with side trips to Algeria, Europe, the Balkans, and back to England where my twin sister and I were born. Though very different, my love of language, search for home, and quest for identity, animate both books.
Join me as I embrace the hardscrabble immigrant Jewish community of post-WWII Lyon, immersing myself yet again in a new language, culture, and cuisine. And (spoiler alert), narrowly avoid a harrowing brush with kidnapping. I’m hoping to post chapters as I pound them out in the coming months. Stay tuned!
About Paula Wagner
I was born in London to an English mother and Jewish American father. Together with my identical twin sister, I spent my first years crisscrossing the US as our parents searched for a place to call home. The ten-year road-trip was an exhilarating adventure of encountering new places and faces punctuated by inevitable grief of farewell. But those tumbleweed years must also have kindled my wanderlust.
Although I grew up in the US with English as my first language, I always knew I was from “somewhere else.” Spending most of my twenties as a new immigrant in Israel, as well as living in the French immigrant Jewish community reinforced my identity as a newcomer at heart. I’m still learning the lessons of my own search for home and belonging which has come to mean not so much a place on a map, as the enduring relationships formed on the journey.
I hold a BA in women’s studies, an MA in career development, along with languages studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As the principal of LifeWork Careers for over twenty years, I have enjoyed helping hundreds of diverse clients pursue their own passions in life and work.
My husband and I share a blended family of four grown children, eight grandkids, and a far flung extended family beyond our current home in Albany, California. When I’m not practicing the art and craft of creative writing, I enjoy swimming, river rafting, yoga, singing, cooking, and traveling.