Kristin Duncombe
Author, Therapist, Coach
Identity
and reinvention
Kristin Louise Duncombe’s books tell it like it is.
Both Trailing and Five Flights Up are renowned in the global community for exposing the identity loss and relational breakdown that often comes with the expat experience. Duncombe’s books speak to a broad audience of women who struggle to invent the lives they yearn for, and provide a narrative blueprint for finding meaning and purpose.
Kirkus Reviews call her writing “Enormously appealing,… for smart women (and men)”
Books by KLD
Trailing: A Memoir
Something unexpected occurs when Kristin Louise Duncombe moves to New Orleans to begin her adult life as a psychotherapist: She falls madly in love with a Médecins Sans Frontières doctor, abandons all of her plans, and follows him on a medical mission to East Africa.
OBJECT: A Memoir
What happens when an American diplomat is exposed as a sexual abuser of young girls?
In her searing memoir, Duncombe takes us back to her childhood in West Africa, where her life is a tapestry of lazy family days by the pool and secret abuse at the hands of an esteemed member of the close-knit US Embassy community.
Meet Kristin
American author, therapist and coach, Kristin Louise Duncombe has lived in Europe since 2001. She has based her career on working with international and expatriate individuals and families, following her own experience of growing up across Africa and Asia as the child of a US diplomat, and having lived internationally most of her adult life.
Author of Trailing: A Memoir and Five Flights Up, Duncombe’s writing addresses, among other things, the specific challenges and idiosyncracies of the expat existence.
Press
Guest articles on www.shewrites.com
A selection of articles on www.shewrites.com "Those five years in Kenya and Uganda included, among many other things, getting violently carjacked, bearing witness to cholera and ebola epidemics, the bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi, finding a way to apply my...
Writing is therapy, interview on Expat Info Desk
"Though you’ve been travelling most of your life, you’ve been settled in France for a few years now it seems, do you still have the chance or desire to travel? I have been in France for thirteen years now – 10 in Paris and 3 in Lyon. This is after five years in East...
The best memoirs that tell painful stories with eloquence and insight
"Something unexpected occurs when Kristin Louise Duncombe moves to New Orleans to begin her adult life as a psychotherapist: She falls madly in love with a Médecins Sans Frontières doctor, abandons all of her plans, and follows him on a medical mission to East Africa....
Coping with COVID & its impact on our lives
Interview on Listen Notes "In this show, you'll hear Melissa interview Kristin Duncombe a therapist and couples counsellor, life coach, and author. She’s based her career on working with international and expatriate individuals and families following her own...
In Conversation with Jo Parfitt – Writing about the tough stuff
"Kristin Duncombe has already written two terrific memoirs, Trailing and Five Flights Up. Now she is writing her third. A practising psychotherapist and expatriate, she understands many of the issues her clients battle with. But the difference is that she writes about...
Interview on Franceformation
"In this fascinating conversation, we also learn about: A dramatic moment Kristin experienced while living in Kenya and how France felt like an escape hatch after arriving in 2001How she prepared for a nightmare of a day when needing to register as a travailleur...
Interview on Tandem Nomads
"A journey from deep existential crisis to personal and professional fulfilment. Kristin Duncombe shares her story “trailing” with her husband in East Africa and why she insists on using this term “trailing spouse”. She explains in a very interesting way how she...
Guest article on tendayichirawu.com
"As the author of two memoirs, I have gotten accustomed to people being curious about how I manage to deal with the embarrassment/shame/guilt of recording such personal information about my life, for all to see. Why do I want to write all that stuff down? For...
Confessions of a chronic expat
Guest article on www.trailing-spouse.com "Disclaimer: I am a former trailing spouse. My husband and I separated a few years ago, shortly after our move from Lyon, France to Geneva, Switzerland. We are still very much a family, however, and my Ex lives up the street....
