Join Wisconsin author JK Cheema for a reading and discussion about her recently published memoir, A Place to Be. She will be in conversation with local author Christopher Chambers.

As a child, Jatinder Cheema survived the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan and later enjoyed a long career as an American diplomat with USAID, serving in Asia, Africa, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Eritrea. A Place to Be is the story of the choices she makes and how she navigates life and work as a woman, making transitions from home to home and country to country, somehow making each place a place to be—making each place home.

JK Cheema was born in 1942 to a Sikh family in Lahore, which was then India and now Pakistan. After finishing her master’s in social work from India, she immigrated to the United States. In 1981, she completed her PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After graduation, she moved to Washington, DC, and worked as an independent consultant with international organizations. In 1990, she joined the United States Agency for International Development and served in Africa, Asia, Central Asia, Armenia, and Afghanistan. She moved to Madison, Wisconsin after retirement, where she now lives with her husband. Cheema remains active in community associations and is the founder of A Place to Be, a place for creative conversations, dialogue, and learning. This is her second book.

Christopher Chambers is the author of three books: Delta 88 and Kind of Blue (fiction), and Inter/views (poetry), and co-editor of the anthology, Ice Fishing for Alligators. His work has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Short Fiction (UK), and The Southern Review. He’s lived in North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, and currently works as an editor and teaches writing in a prison in Wisconsin.