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Roxana was but a wee thing when her parents placed before her a tray with six objects: a candy, a cup, a pen, a bracelet, a dollar, and a book. Her grubby infant hands fell on the book and the pen, and if others have tried to read something very significant into that act of augury, she sees it as evidence that the written word seduces most haphazardly.

At Yale she majored in the Yale Daily News, spending more time at the newspaper than on all of her classes combined, and working summers at the Associated Press in Italy. Officially, she studied Comparative Literature.

In 2010 she completed a Ph.D. at Harvard University in Comparative Literature. Her dissertation considered representations of balconies in painting and literature from 1150 to 1912.

In addition to journalism, she writes poetry and fiction. She received the U.C. Berkeley Eisner Award for Poetry in 1999, and at Harvard she studied verse with Jorie Graham.

Roxana's articles have appeared in Newsweek, the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times Book Review, the Seattle Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, Let's Go Travel Guides, and newspapers worldwide through The Associated Press. She has investigated clergy abuse, covered the high-profile death of a San Diego teenager, interviewed Laura Bush about literacy, covered anti-globalization protests and Vatican controversies, and examined the pressures of beauty pageants on young girls. Her current projects include a collection of short narratives about coffee grounds and a series of articles on the cultural and economic landscape of Eastern Europe.

She plans to retire in Italy in 2060.

(c) 2011 Roxana Popescu.