what’s the story here?
I find myself asking this question all the time, whether I’m in a new place far from home or sitting with my grandparents at the kitchen table. It is the most amazing question, especially when you are a storyteller like me, hungry for chronicles of the world. This is a home for those stories—our stories.
Here are some things about me:
I’m in my twenties
I speak English, Spanish, and a little Arabic
I live in Jackson Heights, a neighborhood of New York where you can’t so much as step outside your door without hearing a language other than English
I’m the author of two books, Every Day the River Changes (a river journey through Colombia) and Stranger in the Desert (searching for my great-grandfather, who was a traveling salesman in the Andes). EDTRC was recently published in Spanish as Rumores del Magdalena: un viaje por Colombia.
For The New Yorker, National Geographic, New York Magazine, and other publications, I’ve taken trains across the United States and across Patagonia, camped out on uninhabited city islands within view of the Manhattan skyline, covered music from Appalachia to the Andes, and
Lately, I’ve immersed myself in the lives of migrants, whether they’re Ecuadorian families selling candy on the NYC subway or solitary Peruvian men herding sheep in the mountains of the American West. Check out my stories here.
I love writing letters, so consider these my letters to you. Sometimes they will be longer and other times they will be quick notes or diaries. But always they will be deeply human stories — about journeys that connect us, about people who bring joy into each other’s lives, and about finding the beauty in the everyday.
I’m really grateful that you’ve decided to join me on this great big adventure, so I promise I won’t overburden you with letters. And I’ll try to write you on the weekends, when you have more time to breathe (and read), hopefully in a comfy chair or outside in the sun.
Thanks again for being here. Write me back, anytime.
All my best,
Jordan -
