Patricia Bragdon

Born and raised in Australia, I travelled extensively with my husband Merritt (known as Bob), a US foreign service officer whose assignments included among others Moscow, USSR, and Jakarta, Indonesia. My vivid memories of Jakarta in the years from 1968 through 1970 led me to choose it as the backdrop of my first novel, "A Tangle of Vines".

The writing of my novel was prompted by my need for a "Project" that would carry me through the unknown duration of the Covid lockdown beginning in 2021, when I was 83 years old. Embroidery was considered and rejected, ditto knitting. TV movies certainly were included, but didn't fully answer the need for some way of mentally escaping the confines of my house. At last, I decided that writing a novel would be the perfect answer, and so I transported myself to the islands of Java and Bali in Indonesia every day. I heard again the laughter from the children playing in the back courtyard of my house, the morning calls of the neighbours' roosters, felt the heat and humidity, and accepted thankfully the refreshing deluges of the rainy season. I spent time in my tropical garden, and smelled once more the fragrance of frangipani and ylangylang, while I peopled the house and garden with the fictional characters I created, including Zoe the Siamese cat. I had a lovely time, and now at 85 I am working on a sequel to that book, unnamed as yet.

I live now in a suburb of Washington DC, and was the Coordinator of Special Events at the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington for a number of years. I have a garden, an old house, and the companionship of an elderly Siamese gentleman-cat named Mr. Goober.