I first heard the story of Agnes Magnusdottir when I was an exchange student in the north of Iceland.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A dear friend of my early childhood has worked as an anthropologist in Papua New Guinea for much of her life, and from the tiny island where her main work has been focused, she has brought me many funny and beautiful stories over the years.
My mum was a librarian, and my dad worked in Greenland.
My mother, as a girl, had remembered this woman from Maine, someone who was part of the extended family somehow, and I recall her talking about this great, risk-taking woman. There are the most amazing, heroic stories in everybody's lives.
When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
My Swedish grandmother was the daughter of a dairy farmer who lived near Hedemora. My Swedish grandfather worked as a clerk for the Swedish railways in the Stockholm station.
My aunt Geraldine was the unofficial historian and storyteller. She had all the information about family members and the gossip that came out of the church because we were very much part of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. At family gatherings, the older folk had the floor, had pride of place, and it was their stories I remember.
My sister and I visited Iceland in 2001, and I incorporated it into 'Pretty Little Liars.'
My mother was a star-struck girl from a little town in Arkansas who had gone to finishing school in New York, and whose mother had given her anything she ever wanted.
My mother, Dorothy Watson, had met my father in a Greek class at Northwestern University.
My mother was a librarian, and she worked at the Black Resource Center in South Central Los Angeles and would call me to tell me stories that she read about that were interesting to her.