Many years ago, a student arrived on the first day of class with a very small infant in her arms. When her turn came to introduce herself, she said she had studied in [country x] for a semester and come back with a little [country-xian]. Which got me thinking. . . and marked one of the first steps toward a short story I wrote sometime later. “Globe Oranges” was published in Bellingham Review in 2004. It’s only tangentially about study abroad, but it is about maps, and how we understand the world, and words, and what we can make for one another. Click here to read the whole story. It’s not brand new, but it’s one that’s stayed with me.
–Thanks to the editors of Bellingham Review for their initial hospitality.