It will be my seventh book and also my debut novel for adults in English.

Last week, I received an email from the editor my publisher assigned to me. The email contained an editorial letter and a Word document with comments and suggested changes.

What a blessing it was to receive her feedback!

I’m a critique partner, beta-reader, and professional editor for other authors, and I believe I’m good in that role. I flag inconsistenties, hunt down weak spots, point out missed opportunities, and raise questions to help the author improve their work.

But doing all this for myself? Self-editing is a useful art (one that I’d like to write about some other time), but it can only take me so far. It remains impossible to correctly judge which parts of the narrative might be unclear to a reader who doesn’t know the story inside and out.

While I’m in Trieste, the city of artists and writers such as Italo Svevo and James Joyce, and traveling in my mind to Iceland to work on Your Body of Mine, I’d like to give you an insight into what it’s like to publish a book with an independent press.

Publishing a Novel with an Independent Press

1. Scheduling

Every publisher has different guidelines and habits.

Mine, Vine Leaves Press, tells authors in advance, before they sign the contract, when their book is scheduled to be published. It helps avoiding surprises and disappointments.

Many people unfamiliar with publishing don’t know that it can take one to three years before an acquired manuscript is available as a book.

Transforming a manuscript into a book is a long process, and publishers large and small limit the number of titles they produce each year. So when an author signs a contract, they may have to wait a while before they can hold their book in their hands.

To give you an idea: I signed the contract for Your Body of Mine in August 2025 and received a release date in April 2027.

I also immediately received the production schedule, so I knew when I could expect to receive comments from an editor and when my book might be ready for pre-order.

When authors complain about their experiences with indie presses, they often mention that they don’t know what to expect from their publishers. They wait for emails and replies and, understandably, get impatient and anxious.

A schedule can absolutely help with that, even if it cannot be absolute. It’s wise to stay flexible and adapt to unexpected delays that may occur in organizations that are run by few humans. We all know how unpredictable life can get.

The publication process, I realize now, sounds a lot like traveling.

2. Developmental Editing

Publishers typically make the effort and investment to improve an author’s manuscript before publication. No matter how good of a writer you think you are, every manuscript can benefit from an editor’s sharp eye.

Some writers fear they will be forced to accept changes they don’t like during this process, but that’s not my experience. I always learn from the feedback, even if I don’t always accept the editor’s solutions.

Editors are always (often) right when they flag a passage as problematic or boring or unclear. As the reader, they cannot be wrong about their own experience. But it remains up to the author to decide how to address the problems an editor points out.

I knew I could trust the current process for Your Body of Mine when my editor wrote:

“You’ll always have the freedom to take or leave any suggestion; my job is to support your story, not impose my own.”

That, to me, is exactly what a good editor should do: Make the book better without trying to turn it into their book.

My editor and I will do two rounds together. In the first, we will look at plot, characters, themes, and authorial distance. In the second, we will check the implementation of the changes made, smooth out details, and improve style.

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3. Sending out Galleys (or ARCs)

With the developmental edits done, the publisher will give me a digital galley, also called an ARC, an advanced reader’s copy. I can send this galley to fellow authors I admire and other people in the industry who might be willing to endorse my book.

In other words: I will be asking for book blurbs, short positive quotes about my book.

The first time I did this it felt totally awkward. It meant approaching another writer and saying, Would you please read my book and say something nice about it?

But when I remembered that all authors do this, I felt better about it. As writers we are joined in a network where we support others (by writing recommendations, book reviews, and book blurbs) and can ask for support when needed.

They say endorsements really help a book find readers, so I will embrace the awkwardness again and send my galleys out.

If you’re interested in writing a book review, feature me on your stack, or interview me, I can also send a galley your way—just let me know!

4. Proofreading

People are usually not allowed to quote from galleys, because it’s not the final text.

A proofreader from the publishing house will go over the galley one more time to catch mistakes my editor and I might have missed.

Think: typos, spelling errors, unintended repetitions, or accidental rhymes.

I get to approve (or reject) all suggested changes.

It’s a final polish, that’s somehow not final, because as soon as you see your book in print, you will spot a mistake—guaranteed.

After proofreading, my manuscript, touched by the kindness and brilliance of others, will finally be ready to become a book.

But I’m not there yet: I’m still in Trieste with my head in Iceland, rewriting and trying to meet my deadline.

Wish me luck?

Are you a book reviewer or podcast host? Do you invite authors on your platform for guest essays or interviews? Please get in touch! I’m open to all sorts of ideas, from digital book club visits to giving workshops. Just hit reply or send me a message.

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Time to Say Goodbye

Daniel and I just arrived in Trieste, in the Northeast of Italy, where we will be staying for a month. I’ve never been here before and once I’m done editing and the temperature goes down—we are melting in this year’s sixth heat wave—I’m keen to explore the city, its environment, and its culinary delights.

Trieste is rumored to have the best coffee in the world.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. What’s your best editor experience? What’s your worst? What question do you have about the publication process that you’d like to see answered in a future post?

Written in Light 005: Who’s Afraid of Whom?

Location: Luxor, Egypt

Time: Late afternoon, October 2022

Dedication: For women who dream of more freedom

This is the fifth episode of Written in Light, a series in which I select one photo and travel back in time to tell the story of why this one captured moment matters.

Read the other episodes here: 001, 002, 003, 004.

Who’s Afraid of Whom?

I’m riding a ramshackle bicycle on a potholed dirt road in a village along the Nile. I’m off the beaten path, yet not alone. My husband Daniel is riding beside me and the street is lined with men.

Standing, smoking, staring.

I’m not supposed to be here.

As a tourist in Egypt I’m supposed to be on a luxury cruise and take guided tours through perfume factories. But I wanted to experience the real Egypt, meet locals, and roam freely like I do elsewhere in the world.

Besides, I’m Dutch: Experiencing a new landscape on a bicycle makes sense to me, no matter where I am.

On the day we arrived in Luxor, I was happy to discover a bicycle rental place. It wasn’t on the lively riverside with all the fancy hotels, but on the West bank where the pharaohs are buried in lavish tombs. On the river bank that represents death.

“Oooh, it’s not safe to visit the Valley of the Kings on a bicycle,” our host said after we told him about our plan.

But he was running a tour company along with his apartment-hotel and his warning sounded a bit self-serving. After we booked a sunset trip with him on a boat for later that week, he no longer objected against our plan.

It’s not stupid, of course, to be careful in Egypt. Tourists have been targeted and killed by terrorists. But many attacks took place in luxury hotels or on tour buses and there’s a tight security system in place nowadays to protect the tourism industry Egypt depends on.

So when the armed men at the checkpoints wave us through without questions, we bicycle into a rugged landscape the color of parchment and bones.

My curiosity is stronger than my fear.

We visit tombs and photograph hieroglyphs until we’re totally mummied out.

Because we still have daylight left, we take a detour on our way home and visit a village I read about online.

Dust blows into my face from the unpaved road.

The village is basically one long street parallel to the Nile, and it is lined with men.

Standing, smoking, staring.

I seem to be the only woman around and start to feel uncomfortable. I am too visible. I wear no headscarf and my arms are bare.

“Maybe we should turn around,” I tell Daniel.

But soon the village becomes more populated, with mothers and children milling about.

A toddler points at us, then waves enthusiastically.

I wave back.

“Hello, hello!” two young boys call.

Women with hijabs begin to wave as well.

“Welcome to Egypt!” I hear multiple times.

Later, over a cup of tea served in the shade of a palm tree, an old man explains that Egypt has suffered terribly from the drop in tourism during the pandemic. Seeing us gives everyone hope.

“We’re not afraid of you, you know,” he says.

On the way back to the hotel, school girls look at me. There I go, a grown woman on a bicycle, her legs in pants, her hair blowing freely in the wind.

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Are you dreaming of finishing a novel? Do you need an editor to deepen a special essay? Are you looking for advice on how to start a new writing project?

I’m available for 1:1 coaching, mentoring, manuscript evaluations, and editing. Please contact me at clairepolders@gmail.com or read more information here..

Previous Episodes

Time to Say Goodbye

My days in Amsterdam are coming to a close. One last walk along the Amstel river, one last dinner with friends. This morning, I’m folding my dresses and fancy shirts to put them back into my storage facility. It was fun to dress with a bit more style, but nothing beats traveling light.

Yesterday, we spread my grandmother’s ashes over the water. My family waited for my return to the Netherlands so we could all raise a glass of Chardonnay to celebrate her long, long life.

What did she truly think of my unconventional life, so different from hers? One thing I know for sure: She wanted what was best for me; she wanted me to be happy.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. On what moments did you have to choose between fear and freedom?

It’s 1898

Across the world, nations are boosting their armies with ever-deadlier weapons. Zeppelins with explosive projectiles are tested and torpedoes are loaded on submarines. Multiple battles are being fought—the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Revolution to name a few. Tensions in Europe are high.

When the young Tsar Nicholas II of Russia calls for a World Peace Conference, other nations are suspicious. Is this a ruse? Or has his mind been pickled by the black caviar he’s known to scarf down? What can he possibly want?

“He was a terrible bore when we welcomed him with a ball,” France complains. “He seemed to resent showing up at his own party.”

“He’s the Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Scots Greys, a regiment of the British army,” Spain grumbles. “And can we trust the British? Fighting the Americans is bad enough.”

“He favors vodka over beer,” Germany whines. “But we must admit, we like him because he’s an antisemite.”

Among the people, enthusiasm for world peace is easier to find.

Leo Tolstoy helps the pacifists with his novels and other writing. Is the era of heroic battles coming to an end? Peace organizations pop up like buttercups in a field.

Before long, even nations get seduced by the promise of peace, convinced by America who says: “The Tsar is antisocialist—how bad can he be?”

It’s 1899

Delegates of 26 nations agree to meet on Dutch ground. The Netherlands is known for its relative neutrality. The 19-year old Queen Wilhelmina is thrilled. As the granddaughter of Anna Paulowna, the daughter of Tsar Paul I, she is the perfect candidate to host a Russia-initiated conference in the Netherlands. She claps her hands and brings out the festoons: She will invite everyone to her royal residence Huis ten Bosch in The Hague.

The First Hague Peace Conference is an unexpected triumph, resulting in the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the vague promise to humanize all wars.

The nations, unfortunately, cannot decide on how to disarm, so the killing continues.

It’s 1902, 1903, 1904…

The nations also fail to agree on when to hold a second World Peace Conference or what to discuss.

Meanwhile, an American steel magnate enters the story. Andrew Carnegie had a few theories about how to make the world better. Here are four of them in my words:

1. Books are the key to knowledge

2. Uneducated people cause trouble

3. Armed conflicts negate humanity

4. Dying rich is dying disgraced.

After having dotted his own country with schools and libraries, Andrew Carnegie is ready for another challenge. Not only does he want to leave his mark in Europe, he also wants to bring peace to the world.

All that’s needed is a palace.

It’s 1905

But who gets to build the palace? An international competition begins and soon the drawing rooms of the Queen Wilhelmina exhibit 216 designs. Everyone, apparently, wants to be the architect of peace.

A Frenchman with Baroque ambitions, Louis Cordonnier, gets the commission. But fearing that he will overspend, a Dutch architect gets attached to the project. Van der Steur is revered for his sober (read: frugal) practicality.

It’s 1907

President Theodore Roosevelt from the Unites States of America calls for another get-together. For the Second Hague Peace Conference, delegates of 44 nations make the journey to the Netherlands. They’re now so hopeful about their future that they decide to build themselves a home. They cannot rely on the hospitality of the Dutch Queen forever, right?

Under the watchful eyes of all, the ceremonial first stone is laid. Their home will house their best intentions, nothing less than peace itself.

It’s 1908, 1909, 1910…

To ensure that the Peace Palace will represent the world, all nations are invited to contribute to its creation.

Imagine a whirlwind drifting over the continents, lifting up works of art, chunks of marble, pieces of furniture. Watch these things fly over rain forests, mountains, oceans, and swamps. Picture them arriving in the hands of curators and architects who fit them into the building as though into one large mosaic.

There are German cast-iron entrance gates with medallions; Dutch stained-glass windows; Scandinavian granite for the stairs; a really accurate Swiss clock; bronze and marble sculptures and busts from allover; a Danish fountain with polar bears; Italian marble for columns and pilasters; Majolica vases; French paintings; Bohemian crystal candelabras; a banister staircase resembling the one in the Opera Garnier; Brazilian cedar and rosewood panels; cloisonné vases of the Qing dynasty; a 160-square-metre 700-kilogram Hereke carpet from the Ottoman Empire; Japanese gobelins; Thai elephant tusks.

No luxury is spared, because luxury equals commitment.

It’s 1913

The Peace Palace stands complete and proud, ready to house the next conference.

It’s 1914

The next conference is cancelled.

Less than a year after the festive opening of the Peace Palace, the First World War breaks out.

Afterword

Nowadays, the Peace Palace houses the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the United Nations International Court of Justice, and The Hague Academy of International Law. The Peace Palace Library is one of the most prestigious in its field.

The Court of Arbitration, among other things, tries to settle disputes before they turn into wars. The International Court of Justice, among other things, tries to find justice when the peace was not kept.

I wrote this history for a chapter in a novel that is yet to be published. The chapter got cut. I turned the chapter into a story. The history got cut from the story. And the story is yet to be published. Such is the life of our texts.

But the fascination remains. Each time I pass the Peace Palace in The Hague, I am impressed by its un-Dutch grandeur and remember the best intentions with which it was built.

How to Visit the Peace Palace

You can only visit the Peace Palace on a guided tour. I highly recommend such a tour, especially the one that includes the inside, but the garden and exterior tours are interesting, too. You need to book and register about two weeks in advance. And don’t forget to bring your passport on the day of your tour.

The Hague is easily reachable by train from Amsterdam in less than an hour. From the train station Den Haag Centraal, you can take a tram that stops near the palace. I recommend renting bicycles, however. That way, you can also go to the coast and enjoy our beautiful dunes on dedicated cycling paths.

Find all the practical information you need here.

Cannot come in person? Find a virtual visit here.

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Time to Say Goodbye

Life in Amsterdam is not worth reporting on at the moment, unless you’d like to hear about the Dutch and French tax systems or my frustrations with sending mail to the U.S.A.?

I enjoy catching up with friends and that’s what matters.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. My novel set in The Hague is now in my agent’s hands! I’ll keep you posted.

1. Cucumber Time

Summer in the Netherlands is cucumber time—komkommertijd.

It’s the period when many locals leave town, offices operate at a slower pace, politicians and celebrities go on holiday, and there’s not much news to report.

Cucumber time is the perfect time to publish an entertaining list that lacks urgency.

2. Behind the Wallpaper

When my American husband Daniel does something that irritates me, like complaining too much or using the word “always” to describe something I only do occasionally, I tell him that I wish I could stick him behind the wallpaper—ik zou je achter het behang willen plakken.

It’s an old-fashioned expression in Dutch, mostly used in jest when speaking to children, but I’m all for bringing it back. The saying perfectly communicates the feeling that you don’t want to see someone right now, yet you’re not quite angry enough to storm out of the room.

3. Shame Lips

In English, people use the Latin word “labia,” but in Dutch we refer to a woman’s lower lips as “shame lips”—schaamlippen.

Fortunately, this may change soon. Feminists and sexologists in the Netherlands are trying to replace the word with “vulva lips”—vulvalippen, to get rid of any negative associations that might otherwise encourage body shame. Our national dictionary, Van Dale, has already welcomed “vulvalippen” into its pages.

4. Hand Shoes

It’s too warm to wear gloves during cucumber time, but if you did you’d be wearing “hand shoes”—handschoenen.

Why invent an entirely new word when an old one with an addition will do?

The Japanese are similarly efficient. They call a wrist a hand-neck (手首, te kubi) and an ankle a foot-neck (足首, ashi kubi).

Makes sense, right?

5. Small Cows and Calves

It’s tempting to talk politics right now. There’s so much going on in the world. When meeting my friends and family members in the Netherlands, I hear about what worries them: rising intolerance toward immigrants, rising antisemitism, Europe’s dependence on an increasingly unreliable United States and its AI companies.

But being true to cucumber time means relaxing on beaches, in parks, or on terraces where it’s best to talk only about small cows and calves—koetjes en kalfjes. In other words: We chitchat about inoffensive subjects and keep ourselves calm.

6. Let Them Smell a Fart

Some Dutch expressions may sound unappealing to you, but compare them to the English equivalent, and things don’t seem quite so bad.

When the Dutch wish someone luck for a match or an important meeting, we say “Let them smell a fart”—Laat ze een poepie ruiken.

It means “Show them what you’ve got, impress them!”

Better to stink up the room than break someone’s leg, right?

7. Cursing Colors

When two colors don’t match in the Netherlands, they’re not just clashing.

They are cursing.

Cursing Colors—vloekende kleuren—was supposed to be the title of my debut novel in Dutch, but the publisher rejected it (for which I’m grateful now) and we settled on The Infallible—De Onfeilbare. This book, however, was not about the pope.

8. Hero on Socks

You must know someone like this, a person who talks big and does little. A person who claims to seek justice or revenge but refrains from taking action because they’re too scared.

In the Netherlands, we call such a person a “hero on socks”—een held op sokken.

It’s one of my favorite expressions, because I just love the image of a hero who’s ineffectual because they never got around to putting on their shoes.

The List Goes On…

• A raccoon is a wash bear—wasbeer.

• An apple core is a clock house—klokhuis.

• Something of the very highest quality is called the nose of the salmon—het neusje van de zalm.

• When something is as easy as a piece of cake, we say it’s a small egg—een eitje.

• But a fried egg is a mirror egg—spiegelei.

• Peanut butter is peanut cheese—pindakaas.

• And a frog is a kicker—kikker.

• When someone in the Netherlands tries to sell you a story that’s obviously untrue, you don’t say “Get out of here!” You say “Go ride a bike!”—Ga toch fietsen!

• And then, when the truth finally emerges, something magical happens: The monkey comes out of the sleeve—de aap komt uit de mouw.

That’s it for today. I have no more small cows and calves to discuss. If I haven’t made you laugh thus far, it’s time to stop reading lists and go enjoy your cucumber time in some other way.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

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Desk Journeys aka Reading Recommendations

Need some inspiration for your next Amsterdam trip?

I recommend:

• The Fall by Albert Camus, a gorgeous short novel that takes place during one long evening in Amsterdam. It’s about guilt, responsibility, and what we owe to strangers.

• Amsterdam, a Brief Life of the City by Geert Mak, for whoever wants to know who else lived in this city besides Anne Frank, Rembrandt, and Vermeer.

• The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugresic, a splendid novel about life in exile for a professor of literature in Amsterdam who’s also a refugee from what was once known as Yugoslavia.

If you buy a book through a link in this newsletter, you support me and indie bookstores at no extra cost to you. You can browse all the books I recommend here.

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Time to Say Goodbye

My days in Amsterdam consist of small bursts or writing in the morning, long city walks, and talking with friends whom I haven’t seen in two years or meet for the first time in real life (looking at you & ).

I’m also dealing with some small health issues—iron and B12 deficiencies—and starting on body-identical hormones to treat my perimenopausal symptoms, such as waking up every hour of the night.

All in all, I’m unwinding and rebalancing.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. What funny words or expressions exist in your language? Or what was your funniest experience in the Netherlands?

One year ago, Vine Leaves Press published my debut story collection in English, Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion.

I was in Lima, Peru at the time and celebrated the release by taking the book on a photo shoot in the city, which made for some fun conversations with curious locals.

Later, in Machu Picchu, I tried reading my book to resident lamas who didn’t even pretend to be interested.

Recently, Woman of the Hour was the winner of the 2026 International Book Award, the winner of the 2026 Independent Author Award, and a finalist for the 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards for best short story collection.

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Buy the book here

To celebrate all this, I’m publishing a flash fiction from the collection today.

“Playground,” is a 400-word story about quiet resistance in a fascist state.

Although first published in 2017, it unfortunately feels quite contemporary.

Before I share the story, first this:

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Playground

a flash fiction by Claire Polders from the collection Woman of the Hour.

They come for coffee when it rains and overstay their welcome. They come alone or in pairs, leaving mud trails on the floor. They come with earbuds, attitudes, and hard mouths. She knows by now: Rudeness travels with power.

Today, one officer sits across from her at the kitchen table, his hands more nicked than the wood. He eyes the cans on her counter. “That’s a lot of beans.”

She nods. “For the food bank. The church put out a call.”

Although she knew him when he still wetted his bed—he and her son painted dragons together—she does not know him now.

He rubs his sweaty neck. “Hope they’re not doling that stuff out to the wrong people.”

She shrugs, denying responsibility. Most officers consider her a Friend of the State, because of her war-hero son, her voting record, but suspicions can turn into facts overnight. One accusation will put her under surveillance.

“More?” She lifts the carafe. Kindness, true or fake, is never wasted.

He holds out his cup as though their meeting is normal. Ever since the regime issued the 11th Order, and citizens threatened with arrest went missing overnight, officers have been patrolling the neighborhood. Rumors circulate that even conservatives have opened their doors and turned homes into shelters.

She pours coffee and testifies: no suspicious behavior, no confidences overheard, nothing to report. His microphone buzzes like a dying fly. At times, she confesses things that are vague yet of interest, just to prove she’s playing ball. Privacy is a peacetime luxury.

After the officer leaves, she locks the door, draws the curtains, warms up the soup, and prepares the tray. She hums a made-up tune. Headaches belong to the past now. She can write to her co-conspirators all night and still be up at six to bake bread.

“You’ve buried your grief,” old friends say.

The family of refugees awaits her in the basement. A woman and her two girls. A brother-in-law. The basement is gloomy and damp, but not unfriendly. In a better world, it would have been her grandchildren’s playground.

Once a week, on Sunday morning, she takes the family out into the yard, where they sit with their faces like sunflowers turned to the light. In a defiant stroke of foresight, weeks before he was killed, her son built the shed that protects them all from view.

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Time to Say Goodbye

Daniel and I arrived in Amsterdam during the World Pride boat parade (wow!) and are now enjoying the city along with many, many tour groups.

Because I have witnessed far more near-accidents than I should, I’m contemplating whether I should write a brief guide for first-timers to Amsterdam that would start with three basic rules:

1. Never cross a street without looking even if you don’t hear cars: The Dutch have very fast and silent bicycles that can leave you very hurt.

2. Don’t walk on the bicycle or car lanes. I know it gets crowded on the sidewalks with so many tourists, but please don’t disrupt traffic in frustration.

3. Don’t block the sidewalks when listening to your tour guide; if you do, your fellow travelers will have no choice but to break rule #2.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. If you’ve read Woman of the Hour and enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads, Amazon, or right here in on Substack. A few kind words can help draw more readers to my work. Thank you to all who’ve done so already!

I just returned from spending two weeks on a Greek island while reading about the record-breaking blazes in France and Spain and the bombings in Iran.

How do we travel in a world on fire?

I’ve written about this subject before while in Cusco, Nagasaki, and Patagonia. And as I was swimming in Greece, I was reminded of an essay of mine about sharing a body of water that got published in ROOM magazine It was never before available online and I’d like you to read it today.

Beach Bodies, from Elsewhere to Greece

Hydra, Greece, 2015

I removed my dress and leaned back. Or rather, I removed the wrap I had fashioned into a dress and craned my neck to scan the seaside territory. I wanted to find a place better than the uneven boulder that was currently mine.

The narrow beach below me was overcrowded with teenagers, possibly college kids, thirty of them at least. Like me, they had taken the seventy-two stone steps down the cliff to the pebbled beach in search of coolness. The shore along the bay lay shadowed by ficus trees and puffs of cypress. The water twinkled with a blue you only see in Greece.

I watched the teenagers with bitterness. They had appropriated the entire beach, a small area I usually shared with only a handful of locals and other older tourists, quiet respectful people. The kids yelled at one another in English and played music from portable iPhone speakers. They were Americans with milk-fed faces and overgrown bodies.

I remember thinking, They take up too much space.

I also remember thinking, I’m a terrible person for thinking that. They have every right to be here and don’t deserve my spite.

The Mediterranean is a body of water meant to be shared.

***

There are thousands of flea-ridden cats on the island, some with broken paws, blind eyes, or missing ears. Most cats are hungry, unless a tourist has just fed them, which happens from time to time. Who doesn’t pity a cat? Every minimart worth its feta sells overpriced cans of tuna and sardines.

No one, however, likes the stink of cat pee. We generally prefer how pines and pastries smell and make our choices accordingly.

***

The teenagers were loud—did I mention that already? They called from the water to the beach and back. They shrieked and splashed with pleasure. They were impossibly young. High on my uncomfy boulder, I closed my eyes and tried to relax. Reading was impossible. Heat and annoyance dilated my veins.

***

There are hundreds of donkeys on the island with flies in their eyes. They carry luggage and water bottles up the hills for lazy tourists. Hydra is an island with almost no roads or cars. When you look a donkey in the eye, as it stands motionless in the port, the strong summer sun burning its back, you see the emptiness of surrender. Forced to accept a fate of slave labor, the donkey has given up on hope, rebellion, sympathy, life.

Tourists, generally, don’t pet them. Donkeys always smell of manure.

***

I removed my bikini top. I was going for a swim and didn’t want the top to get wet. Plus I love swimming nude or semi-nude, the cold water flowing around my free-floating breasts. I climbed down from my boulder onto the pebbled beach and zigzagged between the kids to reach the water. With delight, I absorbed the shock of the prudent youngsters who had usurped my beach. My wild nakedness was making them uncomfortable.

***

There are thousands of refugees along the European borders. They cannot board a plane unless they already have a visa or an asylum request (papers that are hard to come by in a war-torn country). The refugees board unreliable boats, sometimes no more than inflatables, to cross the body of water that separates their hellish past from a more promising future. They know the sea is full of waves, but they cannot care: They already care too much about the bullets and bombs they’re trying to escape. Many of the boats capsize and sink. Many of the refugees are swallowed by the Mediterranean water. The sea, for them, is a burial ground.

***

I swam in the calm coolness, feeling suspended. The water was very salty and I imagined its healing powers drawing impurities from my eczema-prone skin. The sea was a life-giving force for me, a place in which to safely abandon myself.

Back on my boulder, I kept shifting on the hard rock and blamed the loud kids once again for my discomfort. Why were they so oblivious of others? So insensitive? The sun and salt made my skin feel old, like the wrinkled figs dangling from a branch above my head. The sea wasn’t smooth enough to reflect anyone’s face.

***

Over the years, hundreds of bodies have washed up on Mediterranean beaches. Some people grieved or showed concern. Many did not. Was this ignorance or indifference? Interest grew briefly when a photograph of a particular lifeless child went viral.

Look at that boy’s cute face, people said. His blue shorts. His oversized red shirt. His hair not too dark. His skin light enough. How real he is, this boy. His body so human and vulnerable. He resembles us in so many ways. Only then did we feel it. The horror. The tragedy. The disgrace of bodies on the beach.

“If you’ve been an arsehole today, acknowledge it. Try not to be one tomorrow,” the English poet then Kate Tempest now Kae Tempest wrote in Hold Your Own.

On the beach below me, a thin white cat appeared, its soulful eyes gleaming. When the animal seemed to single me out for begging, I considered feeding it. Would a cat gobble down the almonds and cucumbers I had brought with me for lunch? I didn’t try to find out, because I feared that feeding the cat would attract more cats, which would threaten my comfort; I’m allergic to cats. The other day, when a few got too close, I sneezed and sneezed. I convinced myself that I couldn’t afford to sympathize with the cat’s starvation.

***

The refugees who do not drown are often held in undersupplied camps with limited facilities, mostly run by volunteers. When a press visit is scheduled, the toilets are scrubbed. In Piraeus, Greece’s main harbor near Athens, refugees live on concrete parking lots, in nylon tents, underneath highway viaducts, in abandoned barracks. In many cases, there are no toilets.

***

Seeing the cat on the beach made me think of the donkeys. For a moment, I considered freeing one. I probably had enough money to buy at least one out of slavery. But what would the donkey do with its freedom on this island? Starve, probably, or wage a war against its former oppressors. Can donkeys swim? I ate my almonds in a darkening mood, bare-breasted, thinking of the sirens Ulysses tried not to obey.

The boats on the horizon looked like silhouettes being burned by the sun.

“Other countries may offer you discoveries in manners or lore or landscape; Greece offers you something harder—the discovery of yourself,” the British author Lawrence Durrell wrote in Prospero’s Cell.

The majority of houses on this prosperous island are used only a few months a year. Although Greece is suffering from an economic crisis, there are plenty of people who are not. As the summer season draws to an end, they board up their secondary homes and let them stand empty for the rest of the year. The water in their toilets will stink from not being flushed.

***

The teenagers turned up the speakers. To not hear music had to be a betrayal of who they were, of the human condition. I applied more sunscreen even though I was still in the shade and contemplated another swim.

Because of the music no one could hear the drowned calling to us from the sea.

***

Some say the war in Syria began when the nation under its oppressive regime met the worst drought on record. It went quickly from severe water shortages to unemployment to starvation to violent protests to mass executions to torture to attacks with chemical weapons. The West watched. Millions of civilians got trapped between the fire of rebels, religious extremists, and the old regime. Many fled the country. In a cruel twist of irony, thousands of them would find their end in an abundance of water known as the Mediterranean Sea.

***

As I sat looking at the water and the teenagers on the beach, I lost track of the place, solid underneath my bones. What was I doing here, what were the kids doing here, why were desperate mothers surrendering their children to the waves? I had taken this short inexpensive holiday because I had worked hard and needed things to briefly fall away. I deserved peace and quiet. And coolness. Or was it wrong of me to seek comfort here? Was I heartless?

I began to see the people beyond my vision, the ones that weren’t there. Absences create presences, you know—just look at a Dali.

My body grew heavy with self-reproach. How could I be bitter about teenagers on a pebbled beach while others were dead from the blue? I imagined war and blood followed by the violence of waves. Everything undressed before my eyes, and feeling exposed, I covered my breasts in shame.

***

If I could stop animal cruelty by feeding a cat; if music could save us from guns; if I could guarantee a just world by electing the right politicians; if distinguishing good from evil were enough; if Syria had no oil and plenty of water; if survival on earth were not such a challenge; if boats would not sink and bombs not explode; if refugees were allowed to board planes and arrive safely; if giving up my comforts would increase justice; if I could disarm fanatics by showing them my hate; if sending strangers my love would make a genuine difference; if we could stop seeing the world as a reflection of ourselves; if awareness were contagious; if knowledge were enough; if the world would contain more than rocks and wishful thinking.

***

The next day the teenagers were gone and I reclaimed my spot on the beach. Still, it remained impossible to look at the clear blue sea connecting and separating three continents and not see death.

This essay, in a previous version, was first published in the migration issue of ROOM magazine in 2017. The world has changed since then, but not very much.

I’m in a house without a Wifi connection and it’s nearly impossible to upload photos on my spotty 4G hotspot, so this week’s newsletter has less photos than usual.

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My latest book, Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion, won the 2026 Independent Author Award and the 2026 International Book Award for best short story collection. It was also a finalist for the 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

You can buy Woman of the Hour wherever you usually go for your books.

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Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

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Time to Say Goodbye

I’m back in The Netherlands, where I was born yet where I haven’t lived since 1999, when I moved to Paris to study philosophy at the Sorbonne.

I’m mostly here to catch up with family and friends yet will try to find some time to observe my home country through the lens of someone who has left.

Here’s what I wrote about Amsterdam, tolerance, and overtourism two years ago.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. How do you travel in a world on fire?

I travel the world carrying two backpacks that weigh twelve kilos combined.

When Daniel and I started our nomad life in March 2019, we left Paris with a laptop bag and a roller bag each. But three months later in bridge-laced Venice, we traded our suitcases for midsized backpacks to gain mobility. We’ve been happily traveling light ever since.

It’s not always easy to carry all my belongings on my back. The weight is too much for longer hikes. But I love strolling from a train station to our accommodation without getting into a taxi. I like absorbing the town’s vibe before settling into a home. And most importantly, I want to be free to quickly walk away from unpleasant situations when needed.

I also pay little or nothing for cabin luggage on flights and never check (and therefore never lose) my bags.

Many people we meet on our journeys openly admire us for our ability to travel light. “I could never do that,” they say.

I find their praise fascinating.

When did needing little become an achievement or even a point of envy?

We live in a world where what we have and what we are never seems quite enough. But for the financially stable, owning more and more is not the answer. Quite the opposite: Possessions—or too many of them at least—can feel like a reliability, an obstacle, a weakness, a weight.

For my ongoing series on living well, I’m writing about what it takes to need less material stuff and what we can gain in the end.

How to Need Less

The most important step in needing less is to distinguish wants from needs.

I haven’t lived frugally all my life. It’s something I’ve grown into by slowly recognizing how a minimalist lifestyle is not restricting but freeing.

When the pandemic broke out in 2020, Daniel and I were in Vietnam and had to decide whether we wanted to stay and risk getting stuck, or travel to Europe where the outbreak was much worse. We stayed, yet not without anxiety. What helped me calm my nerves was listing our bare necessities and realizing how lucky we were for needing so little.

My first chaotic list looked something like this: face masks, soap, food, drinking water, pot and stove to boil (rain)water, sunscreen, shade, shoes, mosquito nets.

My second list, after some meditation, included affection, generosity, and an internet cable to stay in contact with loved ones across the world.

In Vietnam, living with my husband in a community accustomed to sharing resources, our fortunate circumstances were such that I only needed to worry about not catching COVID.

The pandemic, however, was an extraordinary time. In “normal” times, when we expect more than mere survival, we also need more.

We thrive when we have financial stability. When we’re loved and feel we belong. When we’re respected and recognized for our contributions. When we have time and space to develop ourselves. When we have some material possessions to ensure our comfort.

But we don’t need a million dollars to become a nomad. We don’t need six pairs of jeans to be loved. We don’t need a hairdresser to fix our hair every week to gain respect. We don’t need yet another expensive conference for professional development. And we certainly don’t need seventy pillows, thirty-nine coffee mugs, eleven pairs of reading glasses, seven lip balms, and three massage chairs to be comfortable.

It takes a mental shift to unmask our presumed needs for wants. And to understand that our wants are often proof of having been manipulated by an economy that profits from convincing us we constantly need more.

Making that mental shift feels like gaining freedom.

Practical Advice to Need Less

List What You Actually Need to Survive
Make a list of what you need to survive in this time and place. Try to make it as bare as possible, just to see where you stand.

Make Mindful Choices
Add a conscious pause between the moment you want something and the moment you buy it. Call the thing you’re about to purchase a want or a need. Choose deliberately. Of course you should sometimes give in to your wants, buy books, beautiful objects, and gifts. But it’s wise to observe what you’re doing.

Replace Quantity with Quality
Our world is overflowing with cheap consumer goods. Resist the temptation to buy something just because it’s a good deal. Instead, invest in high-quality products of which you only need one. One sharp pair of scissors in the kitchen drawer. One wool throw for on the couch. When you select items with care, you will keep caring for them and they can last for years.

Live in the Present
Pay attention to what is right here and right now. Avoid getting stuck on what you want a situation to be and try to appreciate what already exists. We cannot fill a void with possessions, but we can fill it with more presence.

Buy Things When Actually Needed
Don’t over-prepare and make purchases too far in advance. You think you know the future, but life never goes as expected, and you might end up buying things you will never use. I get away with traveling light because I get what I need when I need it. Second-hand stores exist nearly everywhere in the world, and, unsurprisingly, they’re often stocked with exactly the items useful in that region. Trust that your future-self will cope.

Get Comfortable with Discomfort
In one of my favorite films, My Dinner with Andre, directed by Louis Malle, the main character, André Gregory, speaks extensively about discomfort. He argues that shielding ourselves from every physical or emotional discomfort—such as using electric blankets—insulates us from reality and causes us to sleepwalk through life. I agree with him. I believe a certain amount of discomfort keeps us aware and mindful of what matters. It also makes us more resilient and resourceful. Knowing that I can deal with discomfort when necessary is the greatest comfort of all.

How to Live More

Much has been written about the alienating effects of capitalism and how mindless consumption can turn us into the living dead. (And I will write even more about that in future posts.)

Being careful with what we acquire can therefore be seen as an act of resistance. It’s a countercultural invitation to rediscover ourselves.

By needing less, we gain:

By needing less, in short, we can live more freely.

Other Ways to Travel Light

As I carry my two backpacks from place to place, I often wonder what else I can leave behind.

I could surely benefit from needing less certainty, less recognition, less planning, less distrust, and fewer labels. There are so many ways to travel light.

But even in my writing I must make mindful choices. I shouldn’t want too much. Stories and essays shouldn’t drag on until they start to feel like weight. They should end when the time is right.

Now.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

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Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion won the 2026 Independent Author Award and the 2026 International Book Award for best short story collection. It was also a finalist for the 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

You can buy Woman of the Hour wherever you usually go for books. Get it in print from my publisher, get an ebook from Bookshop, get an audiobook from Tantor, or buy it on Amazon or Barnes&Noble. For a preview, please find the title story here.

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Time to Say Goodbye

Daniel and I are in Greece for three more days. It’s hot, the yachts in the harbor are getting larger and larger, I’m worried about the war with Iran, about the nuclear deal with the Saudis, about AI hacking its way out of its sandbox, and about so much more. But then there is the water to briefly wash everything away.

Of all the countries to swim in the world, Greece is my favorite.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. What are your needs and wants this summer?

I’m learning kanji, the Chinese characters the Japanese use as one of their three scripts. Kanji are beautiful and complex, letting me fall into rabbit holes of etymology and meaning.

How fascinating that a 先生 (sensei) is literally a person with a previous (先) life (生), and therefore someone with experience!

When I encountered the Japanese word 絵文字 (emoji) and discovered that the ideograms now used by 90% of the world’s online community, were first invented in Japan, I began to wonder why.

Was it simply because the Japanese, with their kanji, were already accustomed to image-like characters in their written language? 🤔

Was there something in Japanese culture that made emoji more necessary in Japan than elsewhere in the world?

Or had certain unique cultural practices unintentionally prepared the Japanese for the birth of emojis?

I began to 📖 and 📝.

If don’t have time to read the whole newsletter, but would like to keep up with our personal news, please scroll to the last section, “Time to Say Goodbye,” where I share our travel plans, whereabouts, and more.

📜 Brief History

At the end of the twentieth century, when message boards and mobile phones began shrinking human interaction into digital screens, a young Japanese designer was tasked with the creation of 176 ideograms of 144 pixels each. Mobile phones had small screens, text messages had character limits, and using ideograms would save space.

The designer’s name was Shigetaka Kurita, and his first set of emoji were released on Japanese cellphones in 1999.

Although the ideograms were an instant success in Japan, they weren’t standardized into Unicode for another decade. It was only in 2010 that 722 emoji were released on both iPhone and Android.

Today 3,953 different emojis are used by billions of users around the world—a lingua franca for the digital age.

🎀 Emoji as Kawaii

“Both emoji and kanji are ideograms,” Shigetaka Kurita, the inventor of emoji, says in an interview with CNN, “but I did not find inspiration for designing emoji in kanji. In creating emoji, I found inspiration in pictograms, manga, and all sorts of other sources.”

Cute sources, I imagine. Japan is known for its “kawaii” culture, which is widely embraced by both children and adults.

Cuteness is an aesthetic choice to soften daily life. It can shape everything from government mascots and warning signs to fashion, stationery, trains, and corporate branding. Even a businesswoman will carry a Hello Kitty or 🍓keychain to lend warmth to otherwise formal settings.

Emojis are definitely cute. So cute, that I’m personally reluctant to use them in serious communication. But I’m glad they exist, because they add a playfulness to an otherwise sober electronic sphere.

Emojis, like plush toys and baby animals, make us smile.

🙊 Emoji as Haragei

Much of what we express in our face-to-face conversations is nonverbal. We rely on gestures, facial expressions, body language, and intonation to interpret what other people say.

Japanese are particularly good at picking up on such nonverbal cues. For them it’s an essential social skill. From early on, consciously or unconsciously, they learn 腹芸 (haragei)—literally “belly art“—the ability to understand what isn’t said in words.

Just as in haiku, the brief Japanese poems beloved all over the world, deeper meanings are often not directly expressed. Speaking Japanese means understanding silence.

Hiding our true feelings and not saying what we mean can be seen as deceitful in the West. In Japan, however, direct communication can be considered rude.

“Words are the root of all evil,” is a well-known expression in Japanese. Speech can hurt other people’s feelings and cause conflict. It can therefore be considered an act of compassion to express oneself with restraint and let the truth only simmer through in other ways.

But what if there are no other ways?

Digital communication has stripped us all of nonverbal cues. The words we write in emails and texts are skeletal. How do we read between the lines?

I imagine that Japan, a culture accustomed to reading atmosphere, would naturally notice the absence of atmosphere the most.

Emoji return some flesh to the bones of our words and add emotional context.

Note: an American scientist is credited with inventing emoticons, the emojis’ predecessor, so the West, too, had an urgent need to add feeling to our otherwise bare texts.

間 Emoji as Ma

“Ma” is an important concept in Japanese culture. It’s often translated as “silence” or “emptiness” or “space,” but it refers to the meaning that exists between things.

Ma is part of Japanese arts, such as in ikebana, Japanese spirituality, such as in Buddhist stone gardens, and daily life, such as in the gaps in a conversation.

The kanji for “ma” is 間 and combines the kanji for “gate” (門) and “sun” (日). It paints a moment of sunlight streaming through a gate. It’s an invitation to pause and reflect.

For many years, I wrote emojis off as clichés. They were overdramatic and imprecise. Who truly rolls on the floor with laughter? (🤣) I would rather make the effort to put my nuanced feelings into words, than send a quick emoji to get the gist across.

But can I, perhaps, embrace emoji as an expression of ma?

Emojis are plain yet charged. They’re not complete on their own and need the emotional architecture of a reader to gain meaning.

As a storyteller, this speaks to me. Stories in which everything is clear and the reader has nothing to figure out are boring. Stories need empty space in which the reader can speculate and insert their own interpretations.

Emojis remain meaningful after countless repetitions precisely because so much remains unsaid.

✍️ Emoji as Haiku

🕰️💻💬💀😭

💭🌙⛩️🙊🤔🍥🏳️

🗒️🧸🫶💡☀️

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

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Buy my latest book: Woman of the Hour

Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion won the 2026 Independent Author Award and the 2026 International Book Award for best short story collection. It was also a finalist for the 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

You can buy Woman of the Hour wherever you usually go for books. Get it in print from my publisher, get an ebook from Bookshop, get an audiobook from Tantor, or buy it on Amazon or Barnes&Noble. For a preview, please find the title story here.

Author News

I’m participating in another story slam with Nan Tepper because it’s good to connect with others and good to force yourself to do things you’re scared of, such as performing live in front of others.

This Saturday, July 18 at 5pm ET, I will take the stage along with 10 other women to read a 4-minute real-life story about Freedom or Fear.

Mine will take you to Egypt.

Please join us!

If you truly cannot afford to buy a ticket but feel like you must join, please send me a DM via the chat function on the Substack platform. You call also reply to this email, but sometimes these replies end up in my spam box, so I may reply late.

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

Daniel and I are on a Greek island just off the coast of Turkey. We swim, we read, we work, we write, and we stare at the blue of ocean and sky.

“Why see the world, when you’ve got the beach?” sang Frank Ocean in Sweet Life.

Yes, why indeed?

All my best,

Claire

P.S. This essay was written from a note I posted weeks ago. My question “Should I write about why the Japanese invented emoji?” received such a resounding “yes” that I had to follow through. Thank you all for your encouragement! And please add your own ideas about Japan and emoji to this post.

Men sit on stoops and smoke. Men sit on camping chairs and scroll on their phones as the muezzin calls them to prayer. Men sit on stone rims of ancient fountains and watch the women passing by.

Tourists sit on terraces and drink cocktails that cost more than four times the waiter’s minimum wage. Women sit in mosque doorways or on the quay, lost in thought or chatter. Inflation in Turkey sits at 33%.

I sit at my large white desk in a two-bedroom apartment and write about Japan, my privileged life of green tea calmness and Tokyo excitement, my book awards.

This newsletter contains many photos and may be clipped. If it ends unexpectedly, click “View entire message” or “Read more” at the bottom to see the rest.

Istanbul is a maze with few straight streets and many dead ends. It’s un uphill labyrinth of ideas and beliefs, habits and inhibitions.

The streets cannot hold the amount of people that want to pass on foot, in cars, in buses, on scooters, in taxis.

Sixteen million people call Istanbul their home and twenty million international travelers come here each year. Most from Russia, Germany, and the Middle East.

It’s a place where you can take a ten-minute ferry from Asia to Europe for two dollars, where East meets West in every way.

It’s also a place where a cruise with gay passengers gets banned from docking. (Thanks for alerting me, .)

Meanwhile… the mosques invite me in—head, shoulders, and knees covered.

I’m mesmerized by mosaics, by the play of light and shadow. I bathe in real beauty, yet I experience it as impure. Nothing makes me feel unwelcome here except for my own disagreement with some of the teachings of Islam and its fundamentalism.

Then again, I can also feel uncomfortable in a Catholic Church.

I don’t call myself an atheist anymore—I go with the more mysterious “agnostic”—yet I still strongly dislike most organized religions.

Perhaps I feel more at ease in a Buddhist temple or a Shinto shrine because knowing less about their teachings and possible abuses of power, I have less to oppose.

Meanwhile… men keep sitting on stoops. Some look at me with sad eyes that hover between anger and defeat. I look back without smiling, wondering what exactly they see.

For the people who do not work in the 24 billion dollar tourism industry in Istanbul, I do not offer a pinch of hope, and as a tourist I am lousy.

I take few tours. I have already visited Hagia Sophia. And I hate bartering for fake jewelry at the Grand Bazaar, because I hate not knowing the price I must pay for being here as white woman from the West.

Sultans used to have a hundred slave women in their harems who were cared for by slave eunuchs. The stained-glass windows of the gorgeous Topkapı Palace do not show this. They are as mute as the tiles in the mosque.

Who still wholeheartedly agrees with the rules that distinguish the rich from the poor, the men from the women, the gay from the straight, the faithful from the questioning?

Who is allowed this city’s delights?

Meanwhile… the world goes on. Submarines pass by in the Bosporus as bombs explode in nearby Iran.

As if there haven’t yet been enough bloody battles.

As if humanity has learned nothing for centuries.

Turkey produces more and more weapons and gets a new embrace from NATO. With Russia at Europe’s borders, the state of democracy in Turkey can no longer be such a big concern.

There are more sweets in Istanbul than anyone can ever hope to eat—baklava, lokum, halva, dried fruit.

Sweets as mesmerizing as mosaics.

When I wrote in a note that the Spice Bazaar had become inauthentic, an unknown man replied, “Well, stay at home, dear tourists, and the ‘authenticity’ will return.”

I’m aware that I am part of the problem. We travel to meet other cultures, but when too many of us set out, we end up meeting ourselves.

What’s the difference between the opulence and brutality of Ottoman sultans and the wealth and heartlessness of modern-day billionaires?

Between tourists drinking cocktails and me?

At dusk, I sit outside and watch the ships go by on the Bosphorus.

Seagulls make as much as a racket as a baby waking up from its sleep. The sky is prettily darkening and simultaneously brightening with orange streaks. The cruise ships are louder than the muezzins that, compared to the ones in Fez and Cairo, sing rather gently here.

I drink pomegranate juice and eat black olives.

What is my call to prayer? My call to rise?

There’s a despair here I cannot pierce or refuse to fully acknowledge.

I imagine it’s worse to feel disregarded by the eye of the world than to feel judged.

I’ll have to watch carefully and for a long time to see how the world turns. But I need only one glance at the men smoking cheap cigarettes on the stoop to feel their strife.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

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Buy me a coffee (Tip Jar)

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Buy my latest book: Woman of the Hour

Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion won the 2026 Independent Author Award and the 2026 International Book Award for best short story collection. It was also a finalist for the 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

You can buy Woman of the Hour wherever you usually go for your books.

• Get it in print directly from my publisher (best royalties for me).

• Get an ebook from Bookshop (a small extra for me at no extra cost to you).

• Get an audiobook from Tantor Audio.

• Other options: Amazon or Barnes&Noble. Or request it at your local library.

Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

Work with Me

If you’re a writer looking for feedback, editing, developmental support, or book coaching, please read about my professional services on my website.

I’m booked through the summer, but have some time available in the autumn.

Author News

I’m participating in another story slam organized by !

It takes place on Saturday July 18 at 5pm ET.

I will take the stage along with ten other women to read a 4-minute real-life story about Freedom or Fear.

Mine will take you to Egypt.

—> Please join us!

If you cannot afford to buy a ticket but feel like you must join, please send me a DM via the chat function on the Substack platform. You call also reply to this email, but sometimes these replies end up in my spam box, so I may reply late.

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

I’m leaving Istanbul as this newsletter goes out. After a brief sojourn in Southern Turkey, we will take the boat to Symi, a small island in Greece.

It feels like ages since I last swam in the ocean. I'm looking forward to reconnect with the water.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. Have you ever experienced moral discomfort on your journeys? If so, how did you respond to this feeling?

July 2021

My brother and I stand shoulder to shoulder in our mother’s living room, which used to be our living room when we were kids over three decades ago. But it’s all hers now, holding her art books and novels, her female figurines, her chocolate bonbons, her Alzheimer’s pills, her anxieties, her coffin.

We squeeze the rim of the cold wooden box and peer at our mother lying in it, her eyes closed, her face soft as petals and gray as the dawn. She hugs the portrait of the man she loved.

The force with which she loved him meant she unraveled when he died.

I mostly kept it together when the black-vested professionals and I dressed her for the funeral, touched her still warm skin, and lifted her into the coffin. But I broke down when I pressed that portrait into her arms.

This is how my brother and I have staged our last goodbye, with her partner’s two-dimensional image and our three three-dimensional bodies in her Dutch suburban home, surrounded by the cherished possessions whose fate she kept worrying about. I believe she would have approved of us handing out her cashmere and silk scarves to her sisters(-in-law) and friends later that day—warm or lush parts of her wrapped around tear-choked throats.

“She ate a cookie for breakfast,” I tell my brother. “Right there on the couch. Can you believe it? One of those huge rich almond-filled cookies you bought her.”

My brother looks at me, showing his feelings like water its ripples. It’s almost as strange for our near-anorexic mother to have eaten such a cookie for breakfast as it is for us to accept that she is dead.

“Are we really going to close the coffin, Sis?” he asks.

I take a deep breath. “Yes, let’s kiss her and close the coffin.”

My answer sounds as though it’s something I’ve rehearsed.

We pick up the heavy lid and screw it on the coffin with six wooden bolts.

How is it possible that our stomachs were growling with hunger an hour ago? That we sat next to her open coffin and cut ourselves thick slices of raw farmer’s cheese?

“Are we really going to bring her to the cemetery, Sis?”

“Yes, let’s roll her out together and follow her all the way.”

My words are spells that give us the power to do the unbearable.

During the last months of her life, my mother called me a magician each time I prepared us a simple meal—vegetable frittata, salmon fillet, quinoa salad—and she thanked me profusely. When I thanked her in return for the thousands of meals she had cooked for my brother and me—cheese & ham croissants, spaghetti bolognese, steak tartare with caramelized onions—she eyed me with suspicion as though I were pulling her leg. She had disliked cooking all her life and had called herself a bad chef without imagination.

My brother and I transfer her into the waiting hearse and tail her through the city in his car. His three children are with us now, his wife, my husband. It’s early summer, yet it rains and rains as if the sky is too small to hold our tears.

For years, our mother wouldn’t eat if someone else didn’t eat with her, always murmuring about her waistline. It’s only after she forgot that sugar was bad for her that she enjoyed that last rich cookie without guilt.

Her siblings and friends await us at the cemetery, ready to help us carry her in, carry us through. We enter the chapel, where the chairs are placed six Corona-feet apart. I think of the narrow uneasiness of her coffin, her bony body.

“Are we really going to put her in the ground, Sis?”

My brother’s voice is no more than a whisper. We look into each other. Grief scratches us like a familiar claw.

When she finally accepted that she couldn’t be buried next to the man she loved, because she wasn’t Jewish, she chose to lie within calling distance of my brother’s stillborn girl.

“Yes, let’s bury her near the water and let her find her peace.”

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Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion won the 2026 Independent Author Award and the 2026 International Book Award for best short story collection. It was also a finalist for the 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

You can buy Woman of the Hour wherever you usually go for your books.

• Get it in print directly from my publisher (best royalties for me).

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• Other options: Amazon or Barnes&Noble. Or request it at your local library.

Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

Daniel and I are starting our last week in Istanbul. Although the heat dome didn’t cover Turkey, it has still been too hot here to do much during the day. I edit work for clients, write, learn Japanese, and make a lot of salads. I do not complain.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. I publish this essay today to commemorate the day my mother died. What do you do to honor such anniversaries?

Let’s start with the good news: I won another award!

This time my book Woman of the Hour won the 2026 International Book Award for best short story collection.

I’m super grateful to the jury who selected Woman of the Hour, and I’m so happy for the other winners and finalists.

—> Read the full press release and results here.

It was last Friday early in the morning at the airport in Kuala Lumpur that I received the good news. I felt elated, then incredulous. Had I really won? I double checked. The award was mine.

Daniel, as the supportive husband he is, congratulated me profusely and started saying things such as: “What does the award-winning author want to have for breakfast today?”

I laughed sheepishly. His praise made me feel awkward, as though I didn’t deserve this kind of attention. But why not?

Here was the validation I’d craved for years: It was not just luck that my collection Woman of the Hour got published. My book was judged to be good—the best! I should feel proud and accomplished, ready to celebrate.

Still, a voice in my head said: How sad that you need such validation at your age.

I don’t lack self-confidence. Without self-confidence I would have given up writing a long time ago.

To get anywhere in the literary world writers need to stomach a lot of rejections without taking them personally. An editor passing on our book or essay doesn’t mean our writing is bad or unworthy of publishing. It means (for a variety of reasons) that this is not the right home for this work at this time.

I’m fortunate to have a reliable inner ally who helps me persist. Yet alongside this ally lives an annoying inner critic who is hard to silence.

On an average writing day my inner dialogue goes something like this:

When I dreamed of becoming a writer in my early twenties, I thought that seeing my debut novel in a beloved bookstore in Amsterdam would be enough to feel successful. It was not.

When I dreamed of publishing in English, I thought that signing with a literary agent in the U.S. would do the job. It did not.

When I lamented several years ago that I’d never won anything in my life, I thought that getting a book award would finally make me feel accomplished.

But at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, I realized that this wasn’t going to be the magic bullet either after all. I felt grateful and proud: Winning a literary award means so much for a career and yet and yet…

What more do I need to feel I have arrived?

All week, I thought about why I write and where my self-confidence is coming from. My inner critic can be disruptive, slowing me down, yet my inner ally usually restores the balance quickly.

Maybe I should focus less on the future and pay more attention to what is already here. Maybe I should apply the same mindfulness I enjoy on my travels to my writing career. Maybe I need nothing else.

Although the base for my confidence is layered, the most important component is my belief that my writing touches others. That it’s a bridge between us.

Which is why I often reread the following poem by Emily Dickinson when I feel down:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

I don’t get fanmail everyday—most readers (me included) won’t notify authors about what their words have set in motion—but I am grateful for every kind comment, tweet, message, note, or email I have received over the years.

Winning a literary award is absolutely great. It deserves celebrating and dancing! But ultimately it is you, dear readers, who support me the most.

Thank you for being here.

I shall not write in vain.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

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Buy my latest book: Woman of the Hour

Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion can be bought wherever you usually go for your books.

• Get it in print directly from my publisher (better royalties for me).

• Get an ebook from Bookshop (a small extra for me at no extra cost to you).

• Get an audiobook from Tantor Audio.

• Get your local library to order it.

• Other options: Amazon or Barnes&Noble.

Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

Work with Me

If you’re a writer looking for feedback, editing, developmental support, or coaching, please read about my professional services on my website.

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

Daniel and I landed in Istanbul safely last week. The weather is mild here compared to Western Europe, yet we’re still staying on our covered terrace until late in the afternoon to avoid the sun.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. How do you relate to succes in our creative world?

I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to art. I approach it with high expectations. I want art to stop me, make me reflect, ask me questions, and invite my imagination. I want to be moved, rattled, transformed. Just a crack in my beliefs will do. Art should open me to new insights or make me feel uncomfortable with incomprehension.

In short: I believe in art for art’s sake, but I also count on art as a force to change our minds and hearts.

Can computer-generated art designed by a collective do this?

Why I Went

The digital art museums “Borderless” and “Planets” from teamLab are two of Tokyo’s most popular attractions. In the numerous lists of “best things to do in Tokyo” the museums are mentioned right along with the Shibuya Crossing and Shinjuku’s Golden Gai.

I wasn’t keen on going. Tourist sites tend to disappoint me. But the following text on the teamLabs Planets website intrigued me:

“In order to understand the world around them, people separate it into independent entities with perceived boundaries between them. teamLab seeks to transcend these boundaries in our perceptions of the world, of the relationship between the self and the world, and of the continuity of time. Everything exists in a long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity.”

The more I travel, the more I experience this borderless continuity and the decentering of self. I was curious how this might take shape in a museum filled with team-created art.

I also felt enticed by the following promise from the museum: “With Your Entire Body, Immerse, Perceive, and Become One with the Art.”

I’m the cerebral type who does yoga every morning to remind herself she has a body. Physical activities, such as hiking, are important to me, because they take me out of my mind.

In traditional museums we’re rarely allowed to touch the artworks. We cannot hold the exquisite bowl in our hands or embrace the sculpture. We can only watch or listen. What would a more physical experience of art be like?

I, the seduced sceptic, purchased tickets weeks in advance—did I mention the museum was popular?—and took Daniel with me for a long afternoon of digital art.

Forest, Water, Garden, and Open-Air

We arrived ten minutes before our time slot, and a long line of people on the slot before ours was still waiting to enter the museum. The staff kept track of how many people were inside and only let in new visitors when others exited the site. We were lucky, however: After several tour groups left, we moved ahead quickly.

The 35 exhibits in the Planets museum are grouped around three realms: Forest & Garden, Water, and Open-Air.

Our first exhibit was “Catching and Collecting Extinct Forest.”

Immediately, I was wowed. The space was huge and alive with animals roaming across the tall screen walls and swimming beneath our feet. It was beautiful, like walking into a fairytale land.

I wasn’t in awe exactly, but I was full of delightful wonder.

The exhibit was interactive: touching the animals on the screen made them look at me or run away. With an application I had downloaded in advance, I could shoot the animals with a light beam, which made them disappear from the wall. A page with information on where this creature had lived and when it had gone extinct would pop up on my phone. Only after I released the animal back into the wild, could I capture another species.

The game was interesting at first, but I didn’t like the idea of shooting the animals to gain knowledge, and the application didn’t function properly. Perhaps this was because too many people were interacting with the artwork simultaneously or the network was overloaded. It left me frustrated, until I put my phone away and just looked at the magnificent creatures.

Later, I would try another application in another exhibit with the same result. I gave up on this kind of participation afterward and that felt better overall, not using the phone and just experiencing what was there. I even left it to Daniel (mostly) to document our visit in photos and videos.

Physical Challenges and Magic

Many exhibits in “The Athletics Forest” focused on a physical activity that tested my balance and brought out my inner child. I hopped from one furry sphere onto another, climbed a staircase suspended from metal threads, and walked on squishy grounds. The exhibits were like well designed sections of a fairground fun house, entertaining yet not mentally challenging, no matter how smart the museum’s descriptions were.

Families, as you can imagine, had a fantastic time together here.

I was most enamored with “Sketch Umwelt World,” where each visitor could choose a drawing (plane, dolphin, hawk, or butterfly) and color it in. Once I was done with my hawk, I delivered my “artwork” to the scanner, which turned my bird into digital art and released it into the screen world where it flew alongside the creatures of other visitors.

I must admit it was magical to see my hawk come alive this way. A desire I didn’t know I had awakened: I wanted to create more pictorial art.

Water, Light, and Crowds

We took our shoes off to enter the water realm. This alone was interesting: How often have you walked through a museum barefoot?

The first corridor through chlorinated water was to wash our feet, I think, because soon after we entered “Inside the Infinite Crystal Universe,” where the floor was made of mirrored glass.

Visually, this was the most impressive exhibit. Light points created a three-dimensional sculpture that extended infinitely in all directions.

Visitors had their phones and cameras at the ready to snap pictures and record videos. I, too, sat in front of the mirrors and lights to pose for Daniel. But was this art or an interesting Instagram location?

Many exhibits followed, some more engaging than others. I loved the universe of falling flowers and could have easily stayed there lying on the floor looking at the ceiling had it not been for the crowds. There were just too many rude people. We had all been asked in advance to be quiet and respect one another’s space, but non-Japanese visitors ignored these requests. They would bump into me, scream, put their smelly feet inches from my nose.

These were infractions not interactions and they were getting in the way of my immersion.

The magic from the exhibits often proved temporary as well. I would admire the fish in the cloudy water around my legs in “Drawing on the Water Surface Created by the Dance of Koi and People,” only to see the reality soon after. Why was I here?

Real Orchids

The exhibit I enjoyed the most was “Floating Flower Garden: Flowers and I are of the Same Root, the Garden and I are One.”

It was relatively quiet here. Thousands of orchids hung suspended on threads from the ceiling and moved slowly up and down to open or close paths for the visitor. If I moved at a slow pace, I could reach every corner of this densely packed garden without ever touching the plants. The mechanism that controlled the orchids sensed my approach and moved the flowers out of my way.

“When someone continues to look at a flower closely,” the museum text said, “the flower looks back. At that moment, they become one with the flower and may truly see flowers for the first time.”

Is Planets Worth Visiting?

Ultimately, I didn’t commune with the art. The crowds or the digital aspect or the sensual overload kept me at a distance. I consumed and interacted, but the art and I were not speaking to each another. I was a participant in a fascinating art game without ever feeling there was really something at stake.

Then again, I experienced many true moments of wonder. I loved feeling my inner child wake up, my inner painter—for that alone I would return to a museum like Planets. But next time, I will go with different expectations. I will not be seduced by the museum’s promise of experiencing a borderless continuity. I will simply go to enjoy myself.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

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My latest book, Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion, can be bought wherever you usually go for your books.

• Get it in print directly from my publisher (better royalties for me).

• Get an ebook from Bookshop (a small extra for me at no extra cost to you).

• Get an audiobook from Tantor Audio (available May 5, 2026).

• Other options: Amazon or Barnes&Noble.

Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

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Interested in working with me? I’m available for 1:1 coaching, ghostwriting, editing, mentoring, and authoring guest posts. Please contact me at clairepolders@gmail.com or visit this page for more information.

Author News

The novel I’ve been working on so hard these past months is now in the hands of my agent. I feel relieved and anxious. Will she send it on submission to publishers soon?

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

If all went well, Daniel and I now in the air somewhere between Asia and Turkey.

We plan to stay in Istanbul for three weeks, then move south to the Turkish Mediterranean coast and take the ferry to Greece for a brief summer holiday.

We’ve been to the Greek islands many times before, yet long to return there. I’m going with mixed feelings this year. Heat waves, water shortages, and overtourism tell me to stay away. But we’re so incredibly close (30 min by slow boat) and have rented a house on a not too popular island. I’ll let you know how it goes.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. What is your experience with digital art museums?

At 5 a.m. in Shibuya, Tokyo, a drunk salaryman exits a neon-lit karaoke bar, ducks into a cheap 24-hour izakaya, orders a highball with a plate of fried chicken, and watches commercials for dating apps and pachinko parlors flash by on his phone. His world is technological, artificial, and mass-produced.

At the same time in Nanzen-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple on the philosopher’s path in Kyoto, a monk rakes the gravel. With careful, repetitive motions, she creates circles and unbroken lines from the stones at her feet. Her world is traditional, natural, and hand-crafted.

The scenes seem opposite, yet both feel authentically Japanese.

How do they exist side by side?

Country of Contradictions

On and off, I just spent two weeks in Tokyo. I went from underground speed trains to sky-high escalators, and from luxury malls in glass towers to museums where the human-designed art was largely generated by computer algorithms—more about that next week!

I moved among people shopping for the cutest stuffed animal key rings and the latest manga and gadgets. The number of stores, eateries, and vending machines was staggering. LED screens beckoned me as I tried to escape fluorescent signs.

I enjoyed my time in Tokyo, but the excess of everything exhausted me. Even in our tiny apartment on the 24th floor, it was hard to find rest, sandwiched as we were between a highway and railway.

I was mostly a bewildered witness, not a participant of this city life.

What a contrast Tokyo was with the six calm weeks I spent in Kyoto. There, I lived in a traditional Japanese house in non-touristic neighborhood and walked or bicycled from a tea house to a small shrine or spent the day walking along the Kamo river with the locals.

I wonder: How can the Japanese be so devoted to consumption and pop culture while being so mindful and reverent of the past?

It’s not like half of the country swings one way and the other half the other way: The contrast often exists within individuals. People who spend a lot of money on (fast) fashion and trendy headphones visit shrines, spend hours admiring cherry blossoms, restrain from being a nuisance in public, over-indulge in sweet potato puddings and matcha ice cream, build rock towers in the riverbed, repair broken tea bowls, and buy plastic samurai swords and kitten socks.

Where I see a conflict between two different ways of being in the world, the Japanese seem to just live their lives.

They move fluidly between different spheres. They can commit to formality and hierarchy at the office, respect silence and equality in public places, and embrace laughter and excess when in a bar with friends.

Do they not feel the tension of embodying incompatible views? Or do they not perceive the views as incompatible?

Oppositional Thinking and Inner Conflicts

I was raised in the West and grew up with oppositional thinking, the tendency to divide the world in strict categories. Things are either this or that. People are either smart or stupid, kind or rude, worthy of attention or not. They’re either with us or against us.

It’s a way of thinking that breeds conflicts in global politics, local communities, and within ourselves.

As I was growing up, I tried to be clear about who I was. Knowing that others would judge and categorize me, I didn’t want to claim being one thing and show evidence of being another.

I wanted to be consistent in my identity. But that was hard. Is still hard.

As a vegan in my late twenties, I felt like a hypocrite for wearing leather shoes: I was not a real vegan. Ten years later, I felt seen when Roxane Gay wrote about the discomfort of being a bad feminist, someone who holds feminist values yet doesn’t always live by them. Now that I’m a minimalist nomad, I experience moral anxiety when I want to buy a new Japanese crossbody bag while the secondhand in my possession does not yet need to be replaced. Often I feel like a failure when I start my day with yoga and finish it with drinking too much sake.

In bed I think about my “bad deeds” versus my “ideal identity” and how best to stay true to myself. But what part of me is most authentic? My open love for Kyoto or my repressed fascination for Tokyo?

Dialectic, Deconstruction, and Nagomi

The problem of oppositional thinking has been on my mind for years. Decades even.

In college, I was all ears when I heard about Hegel’s dialectic, the theory that our understanding of the world evolves through the resolution of contradictions. When ideas collide, we can bring them together in a higher, unified truth.

This spoke to me, until I felt the violence in Hegel’s union. An ambiguity is only “resolved” by the suppression of anything that is “other” and by forcing opposites to change.

Soon, I grew more fascinated by the French postmodernists, especially Derrida’s deconstruction. He writes that things derive meaning from what they are not and that it would be a mistake to force all otherness into a unifying whole. We should accept that a stable, definite truth remains unattainable for us.

Although postmodernism was helpful to me in theory, I never fully escaped oppositional thinking in real life. Especially not when judging myself.

Recently, I’ve become enamored with nagomi (和み), a Japanese philosophy of finding balance and being at ease amidst conflicting desires and ideas. It teaches how to tolerate ambiguities in the world and within ourselves.

Does nagomi explain why the Japanese seem to suffer less from personal and cultural contradictions than I do?

I’m tempted to say “yes,” of course, and resolve this essay into a neat thesis: Japan has mastered contradictions and offers a model for the rest of us. But that would be too clean, and likely untrue.

Still, nagomi lingers in my mind and I promise to keep you posted.

Tolerating Ambiguity

I’m in Japan for the third time now and am already planning to come back. Living here, spending time in Kyoto and Tokyo, in the countryside and in the cities, has opened me to the possibility of letting opposites exist side by side within myself.

To care about simplicity without renouncing pleasure. To honor the past without resisting the future. To rake gravel (or practice yoga) and drink highballs (or sake) without constant self-interrogation. To move between mindfulness and excess without forcing myself into one unified identity.

Change and variations are natural parts of life. I may try to stay consistent, but all definitions, even the ones we create for ourselves, are limitations.

We don’t have to be one kind of person all the time. We can hold multiple opinions and inhabit different versions of ourselves. We can be present for all the contrasts our life holds. We can say: Right now, I am here.

I’m Claire Polders, a Dutch author and nomad.

I was born in Gouda—yes from the cheese—studied philosophy, moved to Paris, married an American, switched to writing in English, and fell in love with Japan.

For Wander, Wonder, Write I publish essays on my travels, my life, and my writing.

Find out more about my novels and stories on my website www.clairepolders.com.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

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My latest book, Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion, can be bought wherever you usually go for your books.

• Get it in print directly from my publisher (better royalties for me).

• Get an ebook from Bookshop (a small extra for me at no extra cost to you).

• Get an audiobook from Tantor Audio.

• Other options: Amazon or Barnes&Noble.

Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

I’m in the beautiful yet rainy mountains of Nikko this week, meeting troops of Japanese snow monkeys and admiring the famous and opulent Toshogu Shrine.

Next week, around this time and if all goes well, I will be in the air, traveling from Tokyo to Istanbul via Kuala Lumpur.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. How do you deal with inner conflicts?

How does the language we use shape the stories we tell?

What happens to our thoughts when we express ourselves in a foreign tongue?

Does simplification always lead to loss?

Can we transform our limitations into opportunities for growth?

Are we the same person when we speak or write in a strange language?

Who were we before?

These were some of the questions I posed to myself when I set out to write in English ten years ago. And I will address them in the essay below. But first some…

Author News

My book Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion is the WINNER of the 2026 Independent Author Award for best short story collection!

Last week, I learned the book was a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards—yeah!—and now it has won an actual award—double yeah!

Curious? You can read more about the collection on my website and further in this newsletter, or immediately order the book.

Buy my latest book: Woman of the Hour

From Novel to Flash

When I switched to writing in English ten years ago, I began with a novel. I had four books to my name in Dutch—all novels—and I assumed rather naïvely that I could continue on that path in English. But a novel is a large scary beast to tackle when you start writing in a foreign tongue. I was still enriching my vocabulary and learning how to properly use “nor.” So after several maddening revisions on a first chapter with my American husband as the editor, I paused the project and veered toward the small: flash fiction.

This is the first way in which English changed me: I found a new genre.

The brevity of flash made writing in English less intimating to me and allowed me to edit my work multiple times. When we’re writing the first draft of a novel, excessive attention to grammar and style can hold us back. Not so in flash.

The short short genre proved a fortunate choice for other reasons as well. Switching languages is not just a matter of swapping out one set of words and rules for another. It’s an existential change that requires experimentation.

Defamiliarization

Language is entangled with every aspect of our lives. We don’t only use it to express ourselves. Language is a lens through which we perceive the world and a tool for making sense of our experiences. It’s part of who we are.

Abandoning my mother tongue in literature was walking away from what felt like home, especially since I no longer lived in the Netherlands. After my studies, I’d moved to Paris where I lived sandwiched between the French of my new country and the American English of the man I married.

Writing in Dutch meant writing with an unquestioning ease: Using the language was like breathing air. Writing in English meant doubting each word: Using the language was like walking on a field of uneven stones that could trip me with each step. I had to tread lightly and keep my arms out for balance.

Nothing I wrote resonated in the same way as it did in Dutch. Writing in English meant undergoing a process of defamiliarization.

At first, this made me feel limited. Uncertainty about the connotations each word brought to my stories led me to simplify my thoughts. There was a narrowing, a paring down. For someone like me for whom nuance is essential, this was a frustrating phase. Would I ever get close enough to English to hear its undertones?

But then I saw the potential for growth in my limitations. Slowing down, pausing to reflect, weighing each word carefully could only make me a better author.

It can also make us a more careful observer and traveler.

Reinvention

Because I was limited in what I could express, I began to consciously dismantle my ideas and reduce them to essentials. To my surprise, this let to more honesty on the page. It was as though my first language in its immediacy had protected me from the need to truly question myself. Now, in this foreign tongue, my raw nerves were exposed.

Over time, the process of defamiliarization became an embodied experience. As I wrote, I relearned how to feel, see, hear, and touch the world. Little by little, I adjusted to the exquisite tension of speaking intimately in a language that had not raised me.

Writing flash fiction in English gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself. As an author and a person. I could become anyone I wanted. A woman who traces her lost mother in Venice. An idealist who invents a new leader. A child who learns the dangers of xenophobia. A guerrilla gardener who sows life-saving hope. A traveler who delights in tasting European chefs. A teenage girl who turns a cruel ritual into a revolution.

When we write a novel, we must work hard to find the right voice for the book—or for each character, if the story is told from multiple perspectives. When we write a collection of flash fiction, we get to experiment with a range of voices, a kaleidoscope of perspectives.

Inhabiting all the different women in my stories felt liberating and exhilarating. Their existential questions became mine by the choice of my words. Each character gave me the chance to learn something new about myself or more: They broadened my identity.

Publication

In the end, I submitted a manuscript of stories to my publisher as “fiction, mostly.” When I received the galleys, the word “mostly” was cut from the subtitle. I wondered whether I should tell the publisher and ask for it to be put back, yet I chose to let it go. Readers know, or ought to know, that most fiction, no matter how speculative, has plenty of autobiographical elements.

My book Woman of the Hour now exists not only as—can I write this? yes, you can!—an award-winning collection of fifty flash fictions, but as a document of my transformative journey.

Sometimes we need to meet our limitations before we can move beyond them. Sometimes we need to dismantle ourselves to get in touch with a more authentic core.

Writing in English was my undoing and my renewal. I am stranger now, more vulnerable, sharper yet less defined. Ready for the second half of my life.

This essay (in a slightly different version) was first published by Necessary Fiction.

I’m Claire Polders, a Dutch author of six books and 100+ stories and book reviews.

My flash fiction collection Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion was released from Vine Leaves Press in July 2025.

It was the winner for the 2026 Independent Author Award for best short story collection and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Less than a year from now, Your Body of Mine, will be released, my debut novel for adults in English, also published by Vine Leaves Press.

Currently, I’m working on a multi-generational novel about the dark Dutch colonial past and a memoir about elder abuse in Florida.

For Wander, Wonder, Write I publish essays on my travels, my life, and my writing.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

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Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion can be bought wherever you usually go for your books.

• Get it in print directly from my publisher (better royalties for me)

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• Get an audiobook from Tantor Audio

• Other options: Amazon or Barnes&Noble

Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

EARLY PRAISE for Woman of the Hour

“The riveting characters in Woman of the Hour are full of desire, anger, regret, and darkness. Their fragmented lives are tough, but their grit inspires. This brilliant collection makes you love people again.”
—Grant Faulkner, author of The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story and executive producer on America’s Next Great Author

“A brilliant and necessary collection for our times.”
—Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works

“Claire Polders’ flash collection is an exquisite celebration of the whole, the real self, and a call to action for the girl, the woman, and the crone. ”
—Jolene McIlwain, author of NPR-Book-of-the-Year Sidle Creek.

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

Daniel and I are back in Tokyo for another week of city life. Yesterday, Typhoon Jangmi passed over the capital and we watched the sheets of rain from our tiny apartment. Today, we’re heading to two smaller neighborhoods (Shimokitazawa and Daikanyama) for some secondhand shopping. The pants that has traveled the world with me since 2018 needs a replacement and I could use a bit more style in my backpack wardrobe.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. What is your experience with expressing yourself in a foreign language?

Written in Light 004: What a Powerful Woman Truly Looks Like

Location: Subway train between Fukuoka and Itoshima, Kyushu, Japan

Time: About 7 p.m.

Dedication: For Dick Bruna (1927-2017) who invented the Dutch Nijntje, the beloved rabbit known elsewhere in the world as Miffy.

This is the fourth episode of Written in Light, a series in which I select one photo and travel back in time to tell the story of why this one captured moment matters.

Read the other episodes here: 001, 002, 003.

What a Powerful Woman Truly Looks Like

Her stillness is deceptive. With her eyes closed and her heart wide open, she’s circling the world, sensing its pressures.

It’s not an easy journey. She breathes in individual rapes and collective thefts, and remembers all we forgot. Our pollution, our indifference. We’re implicated in the present she brings to light in her mind.

Aware of her awareness, we do not stare. We glance at her bag, the simple rabbit, and sense the strength in her vulnerability. She has put her trust in us.

We hold her so she can retreat. She retreats so we can move forward in the world she reshapes in her sleep.

There are dreams she can only have on the go, her body carried by external forces. She’s most alive when she feels moved. In the shudder of the subway car, she juggles potentialities.

It’s because a cherry pit grows into a tree that inspires awe.

It’s because she likes drawing blood with the prick of a needle.

She unravels the fabric of our society and designs new quilts from the scraps. Each choice is a performance of power. What parts she will toss or sew together. What stitches she will use. The light coming from her face is golden magic.

We do not stare, but we peek of course.

She exposes lies, wipes away tears, destroys weapons, calms down storms, plants flowers, corrects unfair elections, feeds dogs, breaks up gangs, detoxifies waste, dissolves egos, teaches silence, rights wrongs, and smooths the covers of old beloved books.

She opens her eyes when the subway car slows and pulls into the station. In front of the village houses, koi banners float in the wind, telling us to get ready for a generation of children who entered the world only this year.

The birds of her imagination take off with flapping wings. From the rivers, clear water runs through the rice fields and into the sea. The spring of the matriarchs is here. We have arrived.

I’m Claire Polders, a Dutch author and nomad.

I was born in Gouda—yes from the cheese—studied philosophy, moved to Paris, married an American, switched to writing in English, and fell in love with Japan.

For Wander, Wonder, Write I publish essays on my travels, my life, and my writing.

Find out more about my novels and stories on my website www.clairepolders.com.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

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Desk Journeys aka Reading Recommendations

I just finished listening to the author-read audiobook version of The Irish Goodbye,(W. W. Norton, 2026), the second collection of micro memoirs from , who writes The BethAnnigan here on Substack.

I loved her first collection Heating & Cooling and this second volume did not disappoint. Beth Ann Fennelly is a master at condensing emotionally layered scenes into a few sentences, yet also shows herself an excellent author of longer essays.

I particularly loved "The Stories We Tell About the Stories We Tell,” on returning to a small Czech town near the Polish border where the author in her youth spent a year teaching at a local college. How she remembered her time there conflicts with how her former colleagues remember her, which leads the author to dig deeper into the town’s history.

Her essays on the loss of her sister, her marriage, and posing nude for an artist, are equally fascinating and beautiful. I highly recommend reading The Irish Goodbye.

If you buy a book through a link in this newsletter, you support me and indie bookstores at no extra cost to you. You can browse more books I love here.

Author News

One of the photos I took on the Mexican Locos Parade in San Miguel de Allende, was recently used as the cover art for the local paper Qué Pasa?

If you saw that photo and are here because of it, please say “hello” in the comments.

Related Essays

The previous episodes of Written in Light are here: 001, 002, 003.

Time to Say Goodbye

Daniel and I are spending a long week in a beautifully restored home in Chiba, about an hour from Tokyo. We visit shrines, walk along the canals, and bike along the rice paddies on our small foldable bicycles. I’m also trying to finish the edits for a new novel. On Monday, we will return to Tokyo and spend another week in this fascinating city.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. What do you read in this woman’s face?

The rain has been falling for days—after the cherry blossoms come the storms—and when the sky finally opens into a forgiving blue, I climb on my bicycle and ride toward the Sakurai Shrine.

I breathe in the fresh air. Fields of golden barley wave at me as I pedal past. The cabbages are now bigger than my head. Soon the dreaded summer heat will come, but on this perfect spring day the sun just gently warms my back.

I leave my bicycle at the foot of the stone stairs leading up to the shrine. Some cherry blossoms have miraculously survived the storms and are still attached to their branches. People stop to make photos in the dappled light. Who remains unmoved by the pale pink petals, by our awareness of impermanence?

From a bridge, two boys watch with glee as orange koi splash in a patch of light.

The Sakurai Shrine in Itoshima dates from 1632 and is a popular attraction in the Fukuoka region. Most visitors first head to the coast to see the Futamigaura’s couple stones in the ocean and the white Torii gate on the beach. The stones and gate are part of the same Sakurai Shinto shrine, but I save them for another day.

Cedar trees frame the path and infuse the air with a scent I associate with autumn.

At the entrance, another Torii gate stands as it always does, a symbolic threshold between our mundane world and the sacred world where the kami (gods) reside.

Before I pass through the gate, I mimic the other visitors and rinse my hands at the fresh water fountain. It’s a purification ritual and a sign of respect.

The wooden entrance is stacked with huge sake barrels wrapped in straw mats. They’re ceremonial offerings from local sake brewers to honor the kami who call this shrine their home.

Gravel crunches under my feet, a sound to keep me grounded in the present.

I follow the rhythm of the Japanese. I bow to the kami at the halls, clap twice, and bow again. Even without a religious belief, the gestures have meaning to me. I become part of the environment when I participate, and the ancient rituals help me focus my attention.

I’m a tourist, a reporter, but I’m also a small being silently communicating with the unseen. Just like the others in this community.

After my first round, I linger and notice something intriguing.

Near the wooden entrance gate, a few young women are taking selfies while holding laminated photographs of young men in their hands. The women smile, angle the images toward the gate, and snap pictures as though including whoever is absent into the frame.

Boyfriends left back home? Dead relatives? In some cases, the mini male faces are mounted on small sticks and are held aloft like lollypops.

More young women arrive, some young men and mothers, too. They pose and help one another to take the best possible shots. Their bags are adorned with keychains, buttons, and ribbons in bright, coordinated colors—blue, red, green, yellow, and purple. The hues are identical to the banners near the shrine entrance and repeat themselves across clothing, accessories, and nail polish. This is not a coincidence. It’s a code I must decipher.

“We are Arashi,” one of the T-shirts say—in English. I happen to know that “Arashi” means storm in Japanese, but why do these people identify with storms? Is it seasonal? And why is the phrase written in English?

Japan offers at least one new mystery to me everyday.

I find part of the answer at the pavilion where the ema boards are displayed. Ema are hand-sized wooden plaques on which visitors write their wishes or prayers. Most of the ema at the Sakurai shrine are dedicated to this mysterious “Arashi” with hearts and flowers orbiting the Japanese texts. Some ema say “Arashi Live Tour 2026.” So Arashi is a band and the young people are fans!

Somewhat guiltily, I pull out my phone and learn that Arashi is Japan’s most beloved boy band. That I learn this only on my third trip to Japan tells you something about how in sync I am with contemporary pop culture. Together since 1999, the five young men are now on the cusp of an indefinite hiatus and their final tour is underway. Tonight the singing gods are performing the first of three massive shows in the Fukuoka dome.

But why are the Arashi fans here at this shrine? Is the band going to make a semi-secret appearance? Did they shoot a video here?

I decide to ask as group of women, but my Japanese, which is to say my butchering of Japanese, produces more confusion than clarity. The women and I laugh until finally, with patience, one of them explains that the shrine’s name is the same as one of Arashi’s members: Sho Sakurai.

“Same name… so, connection,” another adds in English. She presses her hands together as though in prayer.

Over time, the Sakurai Shrine has become a pilgrimage site for Arashi fans from around Japan. They come to pray for Sho Sakurai’s success and the band’s unity, hoping that their loyalty will keep the boy band together.

As I stand there, watching the people line up to photograph themselves with the laminated faces of their J pop idols, I feel puzzled at first.

Is an accidental overlap of names truly a connection? Why do fans feel the need to come to an ancient shrine and honor their boy gods here? Isn’t that what the Fukuoka dome is for? Their devotion seems joyful and playful like the opposite of serious and real. Why are they reducing the spirituality of a shrine with their everyday love for a pop band?

But the longer I watch, the more I realize how wrong I am.

The shrine does not mind the presence of Arashi fans at all. They’re not degrading the old kami by expanding their adoration to include younger deities. The kami are not as jealous as the Western god I grew up with. They care more about the power of attention, how it pulls people together in a shared practice. The fans perform the ancient rituals, repeat the names of the ones they hold dear, and replicate their image—all in the hope that what they love will last.

My incomprehension turns into recognition.

I tend to draw a line between religion and fandom. I place one in the realm of the sacred and the other in that of the mundane. But such a line does not exist. Especially not in Japan where the idea of a post-secular society seems absurd.

I think of the storms following the cherry blossoms and see how the transient beauty of the blossoms align with the arc of a beloved pop band: the rise, the peak, the inevitable fall.

We all use rituals to make sense of the changing world we inhabit. I’m no different from the fans. On the shared grounds of the Sakurai shrine lives the utterly human desire to hold on to what is not meant to last.

I walk past the ema boards one more time before leaving. The wooden plaques click softly against one another in the breeze. Wishes for exam results, health, and prosperity are interspersed with wishes for Arashi, for five young men whose images, multiplied and carried in fashionable handbags, have found their way into an ancient practice of worship.

When I step back through the Torii gate and cross the symbolic threshold, the difference between the sacred and the mundane seems far less distinct.

I’m Claire Polders, a Dutch author and nomad.

I was born in Gouda—yes from the cheese—studied philosophy, moved to Paris, married an American, switched to writing in English, and fell in love with Japan.

For Wander, Wonder, Write I publish essays on my travels, my life, and my writing.

Find out more about my novels on my website www.clairepolders.com.

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ICMI: My audiobook is available!

My latest book, Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion, is now available as an audiobook.

You can listen to one of my stories right here:

You can also:

• Get it in print directly from my publisher (best royalties for me).

• Get an ebook from Bookshop (a small extra for me at no extra cost to you).

• Get it elsewhere: Amazon or Barnes&Noble.

Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

Audiobook

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

After five hectic days in Tokyo, Daniel and I arrived in a traditional Japanese house in Chiba, an hour from the capital. Here I hope to finish the edits for my new novel—I’m so close—and digest all that I’ve experienced in Tokyo.

Persistent rain for the next two days will keep me working at my desk.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. What are your thoughts on the difference between the sacred and the mundane?

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A Vague Longing for Change

When my husband, Daniel, and I received the news from our landlady that we would lose our home in Paris, we grieved. We didn’t want to part with a place that inspired our creative work and happiness.

But in the fog of our resentment, I spotted the benefits of being expelled: We would finally make a big move.

It was 2018, and I’d been feeling stuck for years. I felt moody and low on energy, but I excelled at inventing excuses to postpone taking charge:

• There was no emergency; I was a spoilt brat with zero reasons to complain about my life.

• I had no time to rearrange my bookshelves, let alone relocate myself.

• I was committed to being a writer and writers stay locked inside their rooms to work; anything else would be a distraction.

• I had to write a bestseller first. Or see my books in translation. Or be invited to an important literary festival.

• The journeys I dreamed of making required me to be better than the flawed human being I was.

• It would be impossible to convince Daniel to give up a known and replace it with an unknown. Why even try?

• We would need a lot more money to improve our life.

In short: the circumstances weren’t right. Or so I told myself.

In reality, there was little that held me back. I was physically healthy, had no children or parents who relied on my care, and could do my work remotely. Even Daniel wasn’t as inflexible as I portrayed him to be.

What kept me from changing my life was the vagueness of my longing. I couldn’t see clearly what I would be moving toward and had no map to get there. I would have to do a lot of soul searching to find out who I wanted to be and restart my life in a way that was right for me—for us. That process was so intimidating that I chose not to start at all.

But as I waited for my circumstances to improve, I was not fully living, not participating in experiences that might bring about the transformation I craved.

I often wonder: Would I have had the courage to leave Paris if we had not lost our home? How much time would I have wasted hoping for a change without ever taking that first essential step?

Life Is Short

My Dutch grandfather survived WWII as a young father in the Netherlands. Along with my grandmother, he worked endless days as a grocer in The Hague while dreaming of being a forester, far away from people. My grandparents bought an apartment in sunny Spain where they one day hoped to live. But before my grandfather reached retirement, he suffered his first heart attack. When the doctors told him the Spanish heat wouldn’t be good for his health, they sold the apartment. Soon after, his heart stopped.

I never knew him; I was three when he died.

My father worked hard as a specialized service engineer for a multinational company. In my youth, we lived in Germany for a while and he traveled frequently for work on his own. He was careful with spending money and saved up for early retirement. He dreamed of living on his yacht, sailing the Mediterranean for much of the year. But between cancer treatments and bouts of illness, his time on board was limited. He died when he was 53.

When Daniel and I lost our home in Paris, I was 43.

Tomorrow, I will be 50.

Perhaps I still have plenty of time—my grandmother lived to be 107. But perhaps I don’t. None of us know. Death will probably come before we’re ready, so it seems wise to face our mortality and accept that the time we have in this particular life is limited.

Why Do We Procrastinate?

Although we know that life is short, many of us postpone living the life we want. We wait for the season to change. For better airfares. For a new desk or door. We wait until others are ready. Until we have more stamina, more space, more time. We wait and wait. For Godot?

Existentialist Sartre introduced me to the idea of “bad faith” when I was in college and I still find his concept useful today. We live in bad faith, Sartre says, when we deny having viable options. We tend to willingly renounce our agency because doing nothing feels more comfortable to us than taking responsibility for our freedom.

And why is that? Because freedom comes with risk. Making a choice can lead to regret, disappointment, and disapproval. Taking any kind of action is scary, because we don’t get to control how the world responds. Chances are that we won’t achieve exactly what we set out to do, and what an embarrassment that would be!

Instead of initiating change, we convince ourselves we’re content enough with life as it is. We procrastinate, because we’re afraid of failure. We don’t want a less than perfect reality to spoil our idealized dream.

But doing nothing is also a choice, a choice that comes with its own consequences.

“Fear of making mistakes can itself become a huge mistake, one that prevents you from living, for life is risky and anything less is already a loss,” writes Rebecca Solnit in A Field Guide to Getting Lost. (A book I fully recommend.)

What’s more embarrassing in the end, not living the life you want or not getting it completely right?

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Embracing Uncertainty

When Daniel and I became nomads, we planned to travel for only two years and then find a house somewhere in Italy or Portugal. But that never happened. Lots of unanticipated things happened instead, such as the pandemic, the death of three of our parents, and us falling in love with nearly every country we visited while making friends along the way. We expanded our horizon, our thinking, and most importantly our concepts of “us” and “home.”

I had not foreseen how much nomad life would suit me because nomad life itself changed who I was.

Some say we live in an age of insecurity. Political, environmental, and social concerns dominate our timelines and make us worry about the future. It doesn’t feel like the right time to initiate changes in our personal life.

But when has the world ever been predictable?

We cannot know the future. We can make informed guesses and prepare ourselves for different possibilities, but being a nomad has taught me that none of our plans are foolproof. There’s always some unexpected element—a storm, a virus—that will force us to reorganize ourselves.

The good news is that we can adapt to unforeseen situations. We all do so constantly. It’s called life. We head out into the world, observe, change gears, adjust, and keep going. We live despite uncertainty. And because of it.

It’s because we don’t know what lies ahead that we can imagine all kinds of possibilities. It’s because the future is not yet written that we show up with our plans and can create the world we would like to inhabit.

When I crave change now, I focus on the advantages of uncertainty and embrace the unknown.

First Steps

Perhaps you want to write a book, make an epic journey, change your profession, move to another country, break up with someone, learn a new language, go back to school, or become a nomad.

Perhaps you have no neglected ambitions and just wish to change the way you move through your days, spend less time on what drains you and pay more attention to what makes you come alive.

Obtaining what you want will require you to act. Below are some ideas that might help you take the first steps toward change.

• Be brutally honest with yourself. Constraints of circumstance are real. We’re limited in what we can do physically, economically, mentally, emotionally, and responsibly. But let’s distinguish real barriers from imaginary ones. Let’s identify excuses for what they are.

• Be hopeful and realistic. It’s wise to acknowledge that not everything is within our reach and equally wise not to exaggerate the diminishment of our choices. Often there are compromises and alternatives. What’s the next best thing we can achieve? Even if we cannot become a professional dancer, we can still enjoy Saturday night dance lessons with friends.

• Start small. Big projects can intimidate us, so it’s best to break them up. I don’t need to adopt a daily meditation practice today. I just need to put my laptop away ten minutes earlier than usual and sit still in a corner before Daniel and I slide into dinner mode.

• Learn on the go. It’s easy to get stuck in preparations. We can always learn more, train more, and keep busy getting ready. But when is the best time for me to start speaking Japanese? After I’ve studied it for a decade and can pronounce words flawlessly or now when I can barely ask for directions without making others laugh?

• Trust in the process. During our first years of traveling, I tried to think of all possible problems in advance and planned for their solutions. But the obstacles that find us never present themselves in predictable ways. Solutions are better suited to problems when we create them on the spot.

• Accept imperfection. If we immediately have the highest standards for ourselves, we may never get started. I’ve written enough books to know that the sublime idea in my head will never show up on paper. I must write an imperfect draft first, then rewrite it many times for it to become less imperfect. For me, it’s the only way to write—and to live.

• Change direction if necessary. No matter where I am in the process, I allow myself to give up or change my mind. Not because of setbacks—these are inevitable and shouldn’t discourage us—but because of fresh insights I lacked when I started out. Choices are seldom definitive. We transform as we actualize our plans, so we should let our plans evolve alongside us. Sometimes we need to experiment and try out multiple options before we find our way.

• Lean into fears. Fears arise when we feel vulnerable, which means we’re onto something worthwhile. Fears equal interest.

Unsure About What You Want?

If you’re like me, sensing a need for change yet unsure about what you really want, then start by slowing down. Seek silence, visit a museum, walk in the forest or park, read poetry, meditate, talk to friends, and ask yourself a lot of questions.

Live Now, Don’t Wait

When a fellow nomad asked me whether I had any regrets about my life choices, I told her I wished I had left my comfort zone sooner.

I’m ashamed of many things. The books that didn’t sell. The friendships that suffer due to my lack of attention. The family disaster I failed to avoid. But what shames me most in the early morning hours is not having listened to my own twilight longing. As though it didn’t matter that I felt unrealized. As though I didn’t matter.

So this is what I’d like to offer on the eve of my 50th birthday.

If we feel stuck or low on energy, it’s important to ask ourselves why. Rest alone will not cure us if our exhaustion comes from standing still, from denying or avoiding what we want.

A forward motion, no matter how small, can refuel us and bring us closer to the person we want to be.

Live now. Don’t wait.

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Reading Recommendation

On this week’s subject I recommend Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Olive Burkeman. The book is a sequel to his bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, but can easily be read first or independently.

In a pleasantly self-deprecating tone Burkeman encourages us to embrace imperfectionism and offers concrete advice on what we can do to start using our limited time for the things that matter most to us.

Some of his suggestions were familiar to me, but overall the book helped me to refocus my attention. For example: I used to read and respond to emails first thing in the morning, until I realized I was wasting my best writing hours to matters I hadn’t chosen. Now, I scan my email in the late afternoon and only reply to issues that cannot wait and to people with whom I want to engage right away. Meditations for Mortals is a great resource if you want to stop waiting and start living now.

If you buy a book through a link in this newsletter, you support me and indie bookstores at no extra cost to you. You can browse all the books I recommend here.

Work with Me

If you’re a writer looking for feedback, editing, developmental support, or book coaching, please read about my professional services on my website.

Author News

My book Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion is the WINNER of the 2026 Independent Author Award for best short story collection!

First I learned that the book was a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards—yeah!—and now it has won an actual award—double yeah!

Curious? You can read more about the collection on my website or immediately order the book.

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

Tomorrow I will be flying to Tokyo for four days of busy streets, small eateries, huge museums, vintage shopping, manicured parks, and ancient shrines.

I think it will be fun.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. What is something you’d like to tell me on the eve of my 50th birthday?

But then an Argentinian director in Rio said that São Paulo was, of course, the heart of Brazil’s art world, and an U.S.-Brazilian sibling quartet convinced us that São Paulo was just as delightful a city as Rio—just a lot less touristic.

Readers, we got curious.

When I discovered that a flight from São Paulo to Foz do Iguaçu from where we planned to leave Brazil (and enter Argentina) happened to be far cheaper than a flight from Rio, we swiftly changed our travel plans. We made the journey from Ilha Grande on boat and bus via Paraty to arrive in São Paulo by mid-November 2025.

We were not disappointed.

Please come with us today on a walk through a city that deserves more love.

—> If you’re reading this as an email, your program will likely cut it short—too many photos. To enjoy the full essay, please find that link at the bottom that says “View entire message” and open the email online.

—> If you don’t want to read this newsletter, but would like to keep up with our personal news, please scroll down to the last section, “Time to Say Goodbye,” where I often share our travel plans, whereabouts, and more.

—> Feeling déjà vu? Our last collaborative essay was Faces and Places of Seoul.

Faces and Places of São Paulo, Brazil

On our first day in the city, we visited Liberdade, the neighborhood known as Japantown. It was a Sunday, so the popular weekend market was on, and the crowds were daunting. But once we got away from the greasy food stalls, it was an interesting walk around the old streets. We admired graffiti and buildings, ate sushi, and looked at people. All sorts of people.

The next day, we checked out Beco de Batman, an area famed for its graffiti and named after a rendering of Batman from the 1980s. I’m sure the place was very cool once, but it has since become overly touristic, with vendors selling cheap jewelry and trinkets. The art work on the walls still merits a visit, but you can find truly great graffiti everywhere in São Paulo.

With our appetite for art whetted, we headed to the Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand. We were in luck—it was some type of free culture day—and we walked straight in.

The collection is impressive as it is, but what I truly enjoyed was how this museum displayed the art works. Let me show you:

My first impression: too many paintings in one room—what are they doing to me?

My second impression: this is brilliant!

Hanging the paintings from the ceiling gives us visitors the possibility to encounter the art works without any preamble. No artist names, no movements mentioned, not even a year of creation to orient us. All information is displayed on the back, where we can read it after we’ve spent time alone with the work.

Before we discover how famous the painting is and how much authority it has, we get to ask ourselves: What is this art telling me? And: What is my response?

The paintings also become more real, more 3-D, when we can encircle them, and the route through the large open space is more intuitive. We go where our attention goes and not where a curator sends us.

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For sunset, Daniel and I walked up and down the Avenida Paulista, which was like an entire city on its own.

More art followed the next day when we visited Ibirapuera Park to see the buildings from architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Little did we know that we could enter the Bienal de São Paulo Pavilion for free and be totally wowed. The building, the exposition, the staff, the visitors…

We spent many hours here.

The red curtains that were used to create rooms in the wide open space reminded us of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

After all the lively colors, we craved something more sober and dead: the very unassuming Cemitério São Paulo. It’s not on the tourist map. We just happened to walk past it one day on our way home.

We frequent cemeteries often. I need moments to acknowledge my personal losses and feel how our mortality connects us all. There’s comfort in seeing grief expressed in metal and stone.

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São Paulo has a vibrant night life, an incredible art scene, and a busy business center. But there is also a lot of poverty.

We did not go into the favelas. We took taxis from one neighborhood considered safe to the next. And when we witnessed poverty on the streets, we paid attention.

Our Takeaway

São Paulo is a fascinating city with millions of beautiful people. Especially if you love graffiti, live Brazilian music, and art.

I’m glad Daniel and I changed our travel plans and our minds.

Did our post change your image of São Paulo, too?

I’m Claire Polders, a Dutch author and nomad.

I was born in Gouda—yes from the cheese—studied philosophy, moved to Paris, married an American, switched to writing in English, and fell in love with Japan.

Daniel Presley is the American I married. For this newsletter he was a photographer with a Ricoh GRIIIx camera. He’s also our in-house video producer and chef.

On Wander, Wonder, Write I publish essays on my travels, my life, and my writing.

Find out more about my novels and stories on my website www.clairepolders.com.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback.

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I’m grateful for your support.

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Author News

My latest book, Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion, has just been released as an audiobook!

Listen to one of my stories right here:

You can also:

• Get it in print directly from my publisher (better royalties for me).

• Get an ebook from Bookshop (a small extra for me at no extra cost to you).

• Get it elsewhere: Amazon or Barnes&Noble.

Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

Author Performance

On Saturday May 16th at 5pm ET on Zoom, I’ll be telling a story as a featured writer at Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam!

The theme for this month’s slam is Mothers & Daughters.

All true stories are about 4 minutes long. So this is some intense, condensed storytelling. Please find out more here.

Other Essays on Brazil

Time to Say Goodbye

We have one week in Itoshima left. One week to bicycle to our favorite villages, shrines, and shores. One week to enjoy the sound of the ocean and the cries of birds. Then we will leave all calmness behind and surrender to the frenzy of Tokyo.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. Any tips on Tokyo? Please leave them in the comments!

Today, I will share how this book came to be.

My agent pitched the manuscript as follows:

The story is set in the near future in Iceland, a country that left a deep impression on me when I first visited it in 2008. The rugged, wild landscapes, the intensity of glacial cold, the sense of isolation and defiance.

Your Body of Mine: The Origin Story

My books are born from many ideas running into one another in my mind. It’s impossible to trace each element to its source.

But for Your Body of Mine I can identify three things that led me to write this novel.

1. My Mother’s Alzheimer’s Disease

Years before my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, her behavior changed. She lost her ability to speak foreign languages, stopped driving in the dark, and became so anxious that even events that used to bring her joy, such as a visit from me, caused her excessive stress.

“Where will you sleep? How will you get here? What do you eat?”

I researched what might be wrong with her and what I could do to help. Essays on brain health brought me to the encouraging topic of neuroplasticity.

“Did you know our brain contains far more connections than there are stars in the Milky Way?” asks my protagonist in the novel.

The human brain is an open system, continuously changing to adapt to new circumstances. If part of our brain gets damaged in an accident or stroke, another part can take over essential tasks such as movement and speech. Our brain rewires, or even regenerates, so the whole organism can survive.

I couldn’t save my mother with what I discovered. Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by a failure of neuroplasticity, an inability to form new neural connections. But my fascination for what our brains can do was born.

2. A Newspaper Article

One day, an online newspaper article caught my attention. It was about a scientist who had successfully transplanted a brain from one rhesus macaque into another. Of course I immediately wondered about what this breakthrough could mean for people. What would it take for a human brain transplant to succeed?

I followed my curiosity deep into a rabbit hole and learned about organ rejection, grafting, nerve endings, stem cells, myelin sheaths, and the importance of serotonin levels for neurogenesis. I learned that sex can be very useful to rewrite the body map in our brain.

Along with the science, I got intrigued by the ethical implications of human brain transplants. What problems might arise between mind and body, donor and recipient? What laws exist or should be written?

I also pondered the question of consciousness in general and where it may reside. We often identify ourselves with our brain, our mind, yet living brains are embedded organs, body-bound. Perhaps it’s time to change Descartes’ maxim into: I feel, therefore I am.

3. The Title

Some authors plot their novels in advance and know the story they’re telling. I don’t. I write from character and consequence: I zero in on a dilemma, explore the field of possible actions, and follow the implications of my characters’ choices. In the end, my characters are transformed by their interactions with the world.

But writing like this comes with a risk: The causal chain does not magically draw to a close. One thing will always lead to another, so much so that the book’s ending might be elusive.

Because it’s difficult to find the story’s arc halfway through the writing process, I now force myself to imagine a finale in advance. I still write from character and consequence, but I think it through to the end: What will be my character’s final choice in this story? What leap of faith or sacrifice will she make?

When I landed on the title “Your Body of Mine,” I sensed right away that this was my anchor. It contained the main conflict—the struggle for dominion— and its resolution, even if that resolution wouldn’t be immediately obvious to readers. With this title, I could write this speculative novel. And so I did.

Your Body of Mine: What Happens Next

Your Body of Mine will be my seventh book, yet also my debut adult novel in English.

My first four novels were published in Dutch, my mother tongue, and the book I co-authored with my husband was written for younger readers.

I signed the contract for Your Body of Mine with my publisher Vine Leaves Press on the day they released my flash fiction collection, Woman of the Hour, and I took that as a promising sign.

The official release date for Your Body of Mine is 27 April, 2027.

This seems like a long time away, but there are lots of things happening in the meantime. Think: developmental editing, asking for endorsements, proofreading, writing an ambitious marketing plan that is totally unrealistic, writing the back-of-the-book blurb, designing and revealing the book cover, sending out publicity essays, organizing the book launch, and other exciting things I’m keeping a secret for the time being.

I will continue to write travel essays and report on my life as a nomad, but as the release date for Your Body of Mine approaches, I will publish a bit more than usual about my writing process and what it means to be an author in a highly competitive and AI-influenced market.

Not too long ago, I felt awkward about anything that reeked of promotion. I refused to convince readers to buy my books. They were supposed to be drawn to my writing as if by magic. But writing this post taught me an important lesson: Sharing my honest enthusiasm for my novel simply feels great!

Are you a book reviewer or podcast host? Do you invite authors on your platform for guest essays or interviews? Please get in touch! I’m open to all sorts of ideas, from digital book club visits to giving workshops. Just hit reply or send me a message.

I’m Claire Polders, a Dutch nomad and author of six (soon seven) books.

I was born in Gouda—yes from the cheese—studied philosophy, moved to Paris, married an American, switched to writing in English, and fell in love with Japan.

On Wander, Wonder, Write I publish essays on my travels, my life, and my writing.

Find out more about my novels and stories on my website www.clairepolders.com.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Buy me a coffee (Tip Jar)

Buy Woman of the Hour

Work with me

My latest book, Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion, can be bought wherever you usually go for your books.

• Get it in print directly from my publisher (better royalties for me).

• Get an ebook from Bookshop (a small extra for me at no extra cost to you).

• Get an audiobook from Tantor Audio (available May 5, 2026).

• Other options: Amazon or Barnes&Noble.

Would you like to read a preview first? Please find the title story here.

from Shellphone Chronicles recently wrote this kind review:

Author News

I’m performing in Wham! Bam! Thank you! Slam! on Saturday May 16 on Zoom at 5pm ET.

I will be reading a brief (4 min) nonfiction piece called “My Mother’s Head in the Back of a Car.” And ten other authors on Substack will join me with their essays.

Please come—it will be a blast!

You can find all the information on how to attend here.

Work with Me

If you’re a writer looking for feedback, editing, developmental support, mentoring, or book coaching, please read about my professional services on my website or contact me directly at myfullname@gmail.com.

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

I just cut 5,000 words from my current novel manuscript. It hurts, knowing how much time it took me to write and edit these chapters. But I also feel relieved. The story is undoubtedly stronger now.

Cutting is essential in writing a book. Or as the Japanese would say, “Shikataganai,” meaning: “It cannot be helped.”

All my best,

Claire

P.S. Do you have a book coming out in 2027? If so, please tell me and link to anything you may have already written about it in the comments, so we authors can find one another.

Each time I arrive in Japan, my anxiety softens.

I thought this was due to silence at first. Life outside the major cities in Japan is significantly quieter than elsewhere in the world.

I also attributed my enhanced calm to my feeling safe. Crime levels are famously low in most areas in Japan.

And then there’s this wonderfully pervasive minimalism in furnishing and decoration. Less clutter leaves more space around my thoughts and emphasizes the essential.

But the relative serenity I experience in Japan is not a negative. It doesn’t come from the absence of noise, threat, and mess. It comes from a presence: mine.

When I’m in Japan, I slow down enough to pay attention to the small things in life, the ritual of brewing tea or buying vegetables at the market. Everywhere I look, I see something beautiful or strange that invites me to reflect. A dangling caterpillar is a source of wonder; a dentist office an unexpected moment of joy.

My anxiety softens because I’m present without a goal, without wishing I were someplace else. When I focus on the moment, no matter how mundane, I’m not worrying about the future or dwelling on the past.

Of course I don’t need to be in Japan for this. Nothing stops me from being mindful in other countries. But I find it easier here than anywhere else to notice how small rituals and pleasures enrich my life. Perhaps that’s because mindfulness, originating from Zen Buddhism, is ingrained in Japanese culture.

Here, I’m not alone in my appreciation for the wood grain of the door handle. Not alone in feeling my heart lift as the hawk circles above the fishing boats. Not alone in my gratefulness for each pretty bowl that comes away clean from my brush at night.

People in Japan are paying attention to everything, from pruning their trees to greeting one another on the street. It shows and it feels: It’s contagious, at least it is for me.

Everything in life calls for our mindfulness, and I’ve learned that it benefits me to respond. My anxiety doesn’t lessen from more relaxation but from a higher level of discipline.

Since I arrived here in late March, I’ve made daily notes on my life in Japan. Below I share a small selection.

I may not be able to prolong my life—although I try—but I can live more meaningfully by being present for each moment. The act of noticing is an act of creation.

Buying local soy sauce

We live in a fishing village that is locally known for two things: its oyster huts and its soy sauce factory.

A short walk gets me into the heart of the sleepy village where the fragrance of fermenting soy sauce guides me to the source.

I exchange a few pleasantries in Japanese with the woman who runs the little shop and buy two types of sauce: a classic one for all kinds of dishes and a slightly sweeter and thicker one for raw fish. I also buy a soy sauce pudding that is inexplicably creamy and delicious.

Before I leave, I fill up my water bottle at the well that provides the factory with water. It’s there for the villagers—a common good. Drinking it is pure joy.

Watching others watching cherry blossoms

Having a picnic underneath the trees is essential to hana-mi, flower watching.

Blossoms may flutter down onto our food or hair.

We long to take part in the wonder of it all.

Drinking green tea

I don’t like the popular sweet matcha with milk and cannot attend master ceremonies each day, but I have my own simple green tea ritual when I live in Japan: I boil water to 70 degrees Celsius, let the green leaves steep for 1-2 minutes, pour, and savor.

The sencha pictured is from a small tea house in Kyoto that delivers internationally. It tastes grassy and slightly bitter, the way I like my tea, and is very affordable.

Trying my hand at writing haiku

Learning Japanese

Everyday I learn new words.

The day after I wrote the haiku, a Japanese friend taught me there’s a word for “cherry blossom confetti” in Japanese: Sakurafubuki (桜吹雪).

Normal confetti is “kamifubuki (紙吹雪)” with “kami” meaning paper and “fubuki” meaning blizzard.

“Sakurafubuki” literally means cherry blossom blizzard.

Isn’t language amazing?

Listening to the village song twice a day

At 11:00 am and at 6:00 pm each day, the fishing village I currently call my home plays a brief, peaceful, instrumental song to note the hours.

No clocks striking, no loud muezzin, just a twice daily reminder that time passes and we’re all in this together.

Buying vegetables from a farmer by the side of the road

Honesty stores are of course not unique to Japan. Still, the tiny roadside produce stands feel special here. I leave three coins of a 100 yen in a jar to pick up spinach, spring onions, and a bag of homemade pickled cabbage.

Going to the dentist

I slide open the glass doors and enter a large wooden room dominated by a black piano. There’s a corner with toys yet without children who play and there are a few empty leather chairs near a desk. Nothing is white.

The receptionist hands me a form with my name already on it in Roman letters. I fill out my address, phone number, and birthday, recognizing the kanji for day, month, and year.

Everything goes slowly with a lot of attention and nobody seems rushed.

The dentist speaks English a little better than I speak Japanese and we communicate in a mix of languages. From my reclining chair I have a view of a bamboo forest.

The cleaning is painless. I do not flinch once.

After she’s done, the dentist asks me about Miffy, the design rabbit (Nijntje) from the Netherlands that’s so popular in Japan. We show each other photos and share stories. When I leave, I feel cared for in more ways than one.

Cooking at home with local ingredients

We don’t pretend we’re making Japanese cuisine, but we are cooking Japanese food. We prepare a lot of fish, flavor our dishes with miso and furakake, and add shiso leaves or wakame. We also serve our food on a different selection of plates each night, eat with chop sticks, and drink sake.

Elsewhere, we do things differently, but in Japan, this is our daily meal.

Listening to the rain

I’m Claire Polders, a Dutch author and nomad.

I publish essays here on my travels, my life, and my writing. Find out more about my novels and stories on my website www.clairepolders.com.

By subscribing, sharing, commenting, and liking, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Buy me a coffee (Tip Jar)

Buy Woman of the Hour

Work with me

Desk Journeys aka Reading Recommendations

Today, I’d like to recommend a newsletter instead of a book.

is a Shinto priest based in Osaka who shares the beauty of rituals, nature, and kami with her readers. I particularly liked her explanation of why the Japanese pay such close attention to the cherry blossoms in spring.

Grooving with Kami

Sakura as Shared Nostalgia

What if cherry blossoms were never “just beautiful flowers…

Read more

5 months ago · 62 likes · 30 comments · Toukyo

Related Essays

Time to Say Goodbye

I don’t have anything to add today. It rains. I am writing. And I’m grateful to be alive.

All my best,

Claire

P.S. What are some recent moments in your life that called for your full attention?