For seven years, journalist Rukmini Callimachi covered terrorism, focusing on the Islamic State and al-Qaeda for The New York Times and for the Associated Press. She is a three-time Pulitzer Prize Finalist in International Reporting, as well as the winner of the George Polk Award, the Michael Kelly Award for the Fearless Pursuit of Truth and the inaugural "Integrity in Journalism Award" from the International Center for Journalists. Along with her family, she fled Communist Romania when she was five, becoming a refugee in Switzerland before immigrating to America when she was 10.
At MacDowell, Rukmini began work her memoir for publisher Random House, drafting around 30,000 words of the 100,000-word manuscript, most of it written at her desk in the Schelling Studio, or else in the rocking chair facing the meadow outside.
