She came to novel-writing through journalism. She worked as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press for five years in the Middle East, where she covered the intefadeh, the peace process and the partial Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Then she spent five years in Moscow, where she was a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a newspaper column, “Postcard from Moscow,” and reported for NBC/Mutual Radio. She wrote about Kremlin politics as well as life for average Russians under Gorbachev and Yeltsin during the coup and collapse of the Soviet Union. Even after she began writing novels, she was not able to quash an interest in journalism. She reported from Afghanistan in 2004, and in 2006 she traveled in Kenya, both to research The Camel Bookmobile and to interview street kids in Nairobi and drought and famine victims in the isolated northeast.

In connection with the launch of The Camel Bookmobile, she began a drive to help collect books for the real came library. More details are available at www.camelbookdrive.wordpress.com

A Brown University graduate, she has been awarded fiction fellowships from Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She teaches for Gotham Writers’ Workshop and has also taught at the 92nd Street Y in New York City and at a number of writers’ workshops around the country. She also teaches private classes online. Her website is www.mashahamilton.com.