Marcelline Thomson is a writer with wanderlust who explored realms unknown through books before traveling the world beyond her small Midwest town. Not a long leap, then, for a book to inspire an adventure. Thomson, who has lived in Bangkok, Beirut and London, settled down long enough to become a managing director of a major corporate and financial public relations firm in New York City. Recently she collaborated on two popular books, Entertaining Friends: Easy Does It with 101 Rules of Thumb and Entertaining Houseguests: 101 Rules of Thumb for Host and Guest. She has a B.A. from Manhattanville College and did graduate work in Middle East Area Studies at New York University. She lives with her husband, also a writer, in Manhattan and the Hudson Valley.