he reminded himself of his own personal creed, that life was neither something you defended by hiding nor surrendered calmly on other people’s terms,… - Edwidge Danticat

Along with plot, I am always thinking about structure. Sometimes the story guides you to the best structure for its telling. Using letters seemed like the best way to tell this story. When writing these letters, the characters are selecting what they want to tell. In this case, the woman is writing in a way that would not endanger her or her family if her letters were found by the military authorities who took over the country, and the man is writing with the urgency of someone who could die at any minute while at sea.

All artists, writers among them, have several stories-one might call them creation myths-that haunt and obsess them.

Watching the news reports, it is often hard to tell whether there are real living and breathing women in conflict-stricken places like Haiti. The evening news broadcasts only allow us brief glimpses of presidential coups, rejected boat people, and sabotaged elections The women's stories never manage to make the front page. But they do exist.