My Books

Kristine MaderaI’ve traveled through books since I learned how to read. As a child, I loved to pull out a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, find an exotic locale, and imagine what life would be like if I lived there. I had an ongoing fantasy about living with a caravan of Bedouin nomads, but the closest I got was a camel ride at the edge of the Sahara with a guide who claimed to be Bedouin.

The books I like to write come from that same sense of exploration, whether another culture or, as in How to Meditate with Your Dog, the world within.

In addition to the books below, I’m working on a memoir about exploring unity consciousness while backpacking alone in China and the USSR during the collapse of the Soviet Union and a young adult speculative fantasy pentalogy set in a new future Earth where humanity has reimagined itself as a thriving species on a thriving planet facing a new threat from the skies ~ and from within.

God in Drag by Kristine Madera
The Snakeman's Wife by Kristine Madera

You don’t need to “master” a culture to move through it well.

You just need a few steady skills:

  • How to stay curious,
  • How to adjust without performing
  • How to recover gracefully when you miss a cue—because we all do.

This free PDF guide gives you 12 simple, human skills you can use anywhere: whether traveling abroad, navigating a new city, joining a host family, starting a new job, or even re-entering your own life after a trip.