About Katherine Nouri Hughes
Katherine Nouri Hughes - Quick Facts
- Favorite Activity (not related to writing): Listening to live jazz, jazz club crawling; Orpheus Chamber Orchestra rehearsals; tango; yoga (but that Is related to writing); being with my cat Allen.
- Favorite place to go when thinking through a plot issue or book idea: I live near the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. There is a mile-long circle of planted meadow in front of it. That is where I walk and think.
- Favorite Author: Richard Ford (living); Henry James, Giuseppe di Lampedusa (not).
- Favorite Books: Women with Men by Richard Ford, Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, The Leopard by Lampedusa
- Favorite Movie: Jules et Jim, Francois Truffaut
- Favorite Pastime: Being with my grandchildren.
- Favorite Speech and why: The Gettysburg Address – because it says all it means to say in 272 words; and because it describes in perfectly right words the wonder of humanity, the nobleness of America’s aim, the hope that inheres in purposeful aspiration.
- What do you most like about being an author: I love to write. It makes me happy, focused, liberated. Writing propels, directs and concentrates my imagination. It makes me proud.
Interesting Highlights
Do you teach on a specific topic?
No, I don’t.
What specialized knowledge do you have?
I have some specialized knowledge in the Near East and its modern history. Also of the 16th century Ottoman Empire.
Do you, as an author, provide in-depth research on a topic?
I undertook in-depth research on the 16th century – Ottoman and Venetian history, navigation, astronomy, trade, daily life and warfare for my historical novel The Mapmaker’s Daughter.
What else do you want to share?
I serve on the board of WNET/13 (largest public television station in the country)
I am also on the board of The American University in Cairo and The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Masters Degree from Princeton University Near East Studies Department – on whose Advisory Council I served for 25 years.
Associations
The Century Association, New York City
Other Writings
- How Do We Get the Graduates We Want?, with Lewis C. Solmon; Praeger Press.
- Making Schools Work, with Cheryl Fagnano; Westview Press.
Current Project
An historical novel set in the first half of the 18th century. It is about an Englishman.
Website