Contributors: MyFrenchLife™ 'Zine'
Meet Our Contributor Team
MyFrenchLife™ 'Zine' is the heart of our global Francophile community. It is brought to life by a talented team of writers, mainly from France. Each Contributor brings their own passion, expertise, and unique perspective, sharing rich stories, insights, and discoveries about France and French culture.
Each Contributor has their own Contributor page where you can explore all the articles they’ve written — a world of knowledge and French inspiration awaits!
Bonne lecture - Happy reading.
***NOTE: As we’re currently undergoing a website migration, not all articles or Contributors may appear yet—updates are occurring frequently.***
Alison Eastaway: Explore →
Bethany Keats: Explore →
Betty Carlson
English teacher turned expat writer. Grew up in Olympia, Washington — Pacific Northwest rain, she suspects, prepares you for France. She moved at thirty with good French and an American can-do spirit, and has been living in the Aveyron for over thirty-five years.
Betty started writing in French — a column called Une Américaine en Aveyron for a local weekly — before the internet gave her a wider stage. Now she publishes the irresistible France in Between on Substack, devoted to the small and mid-sized towns the guidebooks routinely skip. She travels to every one of them.
On her writing motivation: “My main motivation for writing is to impart information about little-known parts of France to others in a creative way.”
On her journey: “I think it was meant to be, but it has also been a stop-and-start journey.”
Caroline McCormick-Clarke: Explore →
Claude Kolm: Explore →
Debora Robertson: Explore→
Emily Monaco
Over a decade in Paris with a linguistics degree, she never really left behind. An American writer who made French food her subject and her life. Emily has been a contributor to MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® for years — and if you’ve read her extraordinary cheese column, you already know why she belongs here.
She moved to France at nineteen, started writing vignettes on postcards, and went full-time freelance in 2013. She podcasts on The Fishwives of Paris, writes, and publishes Emily in France on Substack. Her first novel, set on a French cheese farm, is looking for a publisher.
On other people: “Most of the time, other people are what make the world worth living in.”
On cheese: on pilgrimage to Roquefort. Her recommendation for you: Savoie.
8. Jacqueline Dubois: Explore→
9. Jenn Bragg: Explore→
10. Joanna Maclennan: Explore→
11. Judy MacMahon: Explore →
12. Karen Bussen: Explore →
13. Kathryn Gauci: Explore→
14. Kathryn Ivey: Explore→
15. Keith Christiansen: Explore→
16. Keith Van Sickle: Explore →
17. Kelsey Rose: Explore→
18. Laura Washburn Hutton: Explore →
19. Laure Albouy: Explore→
20. Lorraine Tilbury: Explore→
21. Laura.L. Barkat: Explore→
22. Mark Jespersen: Explore→
23. Marie Gundersen: Explore→
24. Morgane Andersson: Explore→
25. Nick Garnett: Explore→
26. Pamela Clapp: Explore→
27. Patricia Russo: Explore→
28. Pierre Guernier: Explore →
29. Rachel Shenk: Explore →
30. Rebecca Jones: Explore →
31. Sacha Cohen: Explore →
32. Shelby Chambers
Brand consultant. Ghostwriter. Nine years at Disney writing as Miss Piggy. Then she quit everything and moved to France.
Shelby came to Paris via Los Angeles, a French husband from ballet class, and a long-overdue reckoning with what she’d always meant to do. Her Substack, Franchement, finds the comedy and candour in Franco-American life, one unspoken rule at a time.
On marrying a Frenchman: “I still very much enjoy the accent, homemade crepes on demand, and complete lack of interest in the NFL.”
On becoming a mother in France: “My identity wasn’t finite; it grew with motherhood, leaving space for the old me, while creating new space for being a mom, whatever that meant to me.”
Stephanie Williamson: Explore →
Suzanne Grosso Vidal
Thirty-plus years in France. French citizenship. An American accent she has never lost and long since stopped apologising for. Suzanne has been a contributor to MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® for years, and if you’ve found her work, you’ll know exactly why she belongs here.
She came to France by chance, followed her French husband from Boston in 1992, and never really left. She has lived in five regions, raised children in a foreign culture, and now writes and photographs life in the South, around Le Puy Sainte Reparade, twenty minutes north of Aix-en-Provence.
On France after thirty years: “Living in France is like living in a museum. No matter where you go, there is a story to tell.”
On identity: “I think I’m not serious enough to be French.”
Avec toute ma gratitude, Suzanne.
Valerie Rivera Explore: →
Victor Coutard
Born in Paris, rooted in Touraine. A bilingual writer who translates himself into English as an act of creative freedom — and as a way to escape what he calls the small world of French journalism. Victor is the voice behind How to Get Lost, a Substack devoted to the France beyond the showcase: the countryside, the producers, the landscapes where things are made rather than consumed.
He came to writing through his hands. Farms in southern France, northern Italy, and Japanese islands. That journey produced his first children’s book, published by Gallimard in 2016 — six books followed, and in 2026, a graphic novel: Cécile, the Sheriff with Casterman.
On Paris: “It’s a place of service rather than experience. In the countryside, that’s where things really happen.”
On happiness: “A good Gamay, a good cheese, sitting by a high altitude lake. I honestly don’t see how you could be happier.”
36. Victorine Lamothe: Explore →