Trading the 9–5 for words felt like a dream come true, until it wasn’t — Of the many batshit-crazy things I have done in my life, quitting my job at the peak of my career, relinquishing my New York apartment, and moving to a cottage in the middle of a field in Albemarle County, Virginia, to cohabit with a deranged gay guy with three dogs…

And a fiction-writing course taught me humility — Actually, back in the 1980s, New York taught me how to do many things: get sober (ish); find a therapist; address my bulimia; ride the A-train; find the best pizza; avoid being mugged — be aware of who’s in front, alongside, and behind you; always look like you know where…

Our wanderlust began in 1968 and is still going strong today, despite our first outings involving us getting caught up in a riot and one of us almost dying from pneumonia — Back in the late 1960s and early ’70s, there was no sweeter road in Aberdeen, Scotland, than the one leading south. Which was why, early one Friday morning in March, my best buddy Sooee and I stood perched, thumbs aloft, by the side of the A92, headed for London for…

Rereading my old travel diary launched me on a mission to find the best friend with whom I’d lost touch decades earlier — Last November, my boyfriend and I took a 17-day, custom-designed vacation to Morocco that included a personal driver with whom we toured the country, from Fez and Rabat to Chefchaouen in the north, Marrakech in the south, the Sahara in the east, and Essaouira on the coast, staying in four…

How an ancient recipe brought comfort in a time of grief — When my mother died a few years ago, lost in the fog of Alzheimer’s, I felt pretty fogbound myself. I’d fallen out with my older sister over a myriad of issues concerning Mum’s care, my work as a freelance print journalist had gone down the internet drain, I lived alone…

In Scotland — love and weather change constantly — I have always tried to avoid weeping in public. An early baptism in such saline displays convinced me to avoid them. Yet, on that dreich and dour evening before Grandma’s funeral, I teared up at every street corner. Not for her. At 96, she’d lived a long life, but for…

Banking on the promise of new beginnings amidst a Scottish art renaissance gone south — Ever since E. B. White wrote, “No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky,” umpteen writers, artists, and dreamers have quoted, misquoted, and appropriated his sentiments. Including me. I was desperate to “be lucky,” when I spilled out of a People’s Express…

Racking up more than five decades of traveling with no signs of slowing down — Hi Globetrotters. My name is… What’s in a name? Over the years, I’ve had several. Ann means “grace,” which no one could ever accuse me of having. So, at 14, during a short-lived stint as a go-go dancer in a cage, I ditched it for hip, happening Anthea. Also short-lived. My journalism moniker was Ann…

Or, as Norman Mailer once told me, not everything in life has to be explained — I hovered, make-up clotting, watching the setting sun transform the West Village into a tawny Tuscan terrain, anticipating what was to come, and wondering, what if— A buzzer rang. My finger seemed to be on it. “C’mon up,” he said, through the intercom. I glided north. “Hi Annie,” said the…