Dears Ones, do you know how hard it is to release your first published novel (Temple Dancer, September 8th!), especially in a pandemic? These days, I’m immersed in the hard part—promotion. What keeps my head above water is that I feel I’m fulfilling a promise I made 26 years ago. After a second sojourn in India, I received a gift from an eight-year-old girl, born in India in 1930—Saraswati’s voice. Saraswati became a temple dancer (devadasi), auspicious and then later disgraced. When I learned about the decimation of the devadasi culture, I knew I was given her story for a reason—it was meant to be shared. Birthing a Book It has taken me twenty-five years. Those years included writing books [...]