THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2026 35 resilience, they reveal what it takes to build a life and raise children across borders. Honest, inspiring, and often humorous, this anthology celebrates the women who serve their country while nurturing the next generation of global citizens. Alicia Ford has been with the State Department for 19 years. She has been assigned to the Boston Passport Agency, Bureau of Budget and Planning, Tegucigalpa, Lima, Istanbul, Bucharest, and Bridgetown. She is currently posted in Port of Spain. Beneath the Flag: From the Field to the Framework: A Former Foreign Service Officer’s Guide to Project Management That Transformed Lives Monika A. Gorzelanska, Palmetto Publishing, 2026, $15.99/paperback, e-book available, 178 pages. Blending memoir with professional insight, former USAID Foreign Service Officer Monika Gorzelanska argues that this agency turned U.S. foreign policy ideas into real-world results across some of the world’s most complex environments. With nearly two decades of experience leading programs in conflict zones and fragile states, she explores how policy is translated into action through effective project management, stakeholder engagement, and disciplined execution. Grounded in globally recognized Project Management Institute (PMI) principles, each chapter connects practical lessons with core management frameworks. Beneath the Flag shows federal employees how to lead with purpose and deliver measurable results in high-stakes international environments. Monika Gorzelanska was with USAID from 2008 to 2025. She served in Kyiv, Accra, Tbilisi, Almaty, Washington, D.C., and Mogadishu. Seeing Red: Spies, Lies and My So-Called Life as a Diplomat Daniel Grossman, independently published, 2026, $17.95/paperback, print only, 275 pages. This memoir in essays covers Daniel Grossman’s time serving as a U.S. diplomat in Leningrad during the Cold War. When he served in the Soviet Union at age 26, his phones were tapped, his home bugged, his neighbor defenestrated, his houseguest attacked, his consulate rocked by the Chernobyl disaster, and his movements even tracked by an ambitious young KGB officer named Vladimir Putin. With autocracy rising around the world, Grossman has written a meditation on the politics of oppression, the nature of dreamers, and the resilience of ordinary people under siege in this private peek behind the Iron Curtain. Daniel Grossman was in the Foreign Service from 1983 to 1989, with assignments in New Delhi, Leningrad, Vienna, and the Soviet desk at the State Department. Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist’s Story of Covering the President— and Why It Matters Steven L. Herman, Kent State University Press, 2026, $24.95/ paperback, e-book available, 258 pages. Originally published in hardcover in 2024, this memoir by Steve Herman, a former Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), is now in paperback and with a new preface covering the destruction of Voice of America early in the second Trump administration. He pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of the White House press corps, giving readers a glimpse into the historic and current relationship between the president and the press. Tracing the trajectory of his career as a journalist and the challenges of covering the Trump administration for VOA, Herman also convincingly argues that public access to accurate, unbiased information is essential to a healthy and peaceful democracy. Further, he continues, journalists can and should play a key role in pressing government officials to be truthful and transparent. At a time when misinformation is rampant and the need for unbiased coverage of current events more urgent than ever, Herman reminds readers that freedom of the press is a foundational American right. Retired FSO Steve Herman was VOA’s senior White House correspondent from 2017 through 2025.
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