Gina Goldhammer studied English and Creative Writing at Syracuse University, has a master’s degree in literature from Harvard, and after graduation worked briefly on Wall Street and at US News & World Report magazine. For the next twenty years, she was the personal editor of the former US Secretary of State, Henry A. Kissinger, and worked with him closely on all his books, speeches and news columns, including his 1994 seminal work, Diplomacy. Gina’s father was involved in geopolitics during the Cold War, attaining prominence in 1961 as the highest-ranking defector from a communist country – a story she is working into a novel.

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"I have thought of myself a writer for as long as I can remember and always considered it my true profession, whatever day job I was holding. Even when I was busiest as editor to a former Secretary of State for nearly two decades, at no point did I stop writing fiction 'on the side,' dabbling in literary subjects that never fully coalesced: dealing with themes of love lost and regained, faith and identity that have always intrigued me and appear in two further novels – one that is nearly complete and another in the works. I never showed my work to anyone except my husband until he became ill with dementia. In giving up my career to care for him over a period of years, after his death a door finally opened, really for the first time, to finding the time and space to write.

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"I am an early riser but don't like writing in the dark! So this is my time to get as much done on another major endeavour close to my heart: the restoration of a medieval Benedictine monastery on a hilltop near Venice and the installation of an outdoor contemplative garden (the 'Path of Salvation') that will be complete in 2026. I compose on my computer but also write in longhand on scraps of notepaper that accompany me on long walks and leave a trail behind me from the kitchen to the library and even my car. Having begun to write on an electric typewriter, I count my blessings that we no longer have to use carbon paper to make copies or white-out to correct typos!"

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