2021

Robert Landon is overseas. Early in the pandemic, he got stranded in a tiny Spanish town in the Sierra Nevada, about an hour from Granada. “I fell in love with the place,” he writes. After returning home to sell his place in New York City, he moved to Spain and has been working on a non-fiction book.

2020

Robert Landon’s first article for the New York Times, published in August 2019, was called “Significant Mother.” It tells the story of Robert’s complicated relationship with the woman who was briefly married to his father. As the article teased, “Beth was my ex-stepmother, but ‘mother’ was still a part of her title. Could I share a home with her?” After reading the article you can listen to the Significant Mother podcast. Robert, Beth, and their friends share uncensored and often hilarious stories about their unconventional lives. In the spring, Robert, who usually writes about travel and architecture, recorded episodes from a farmhouse in Spain, where he got stuck during the pandemic and was in quarantine. During one episode, Robert mused about trying to find a way to purchase the farmhouse and make it his new home. But he abandoned the plan “after the company I worked for cratered, and I lost my job along with 20 million other Americans.” He expected to be in Spain for a year. For the latest on Robert’s whereabouts, please download Significant Mother.

reported by Ted Winstead '85