My first book, Little Emperors: A Year with the Future of China—a memoir of my time teaching elementary school in Guangzhou—survived the fallout from two publisher bankruptcies and finally appeared in 2008 via Dundurn in Toronto. Little Emperors was shortlisted for the 2008 George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature and named a finalist for the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize.
In October 2009 I took a year off and went to live in Dharamsala, India. My next book, Kicking the Sky, is based on my experiences there and on my travels around India, China, and Tibet.