Writer, British, New Yorker, very handsome and our new favorite man, are a few of the characteristics of Simon van Booy.
It takes one to know one, and we're pretty sure we are dealing with a hopeless romantic here. The very encouraging title Love Begins in Winter, is his latest collection of short stories.

I seldom volunteer anything. For most of my thirties,
I have seen little point in telling people anything. But as a teenager, I loved passionately, spent whole nights crying (for what, I can no longer remember). I followed women home and then wrote sonatas that I left on doorsteps in the middle of the night. I dived into ponds fully clothed.
I almost drank myself to death. In my youth, all conflict was resolution—just a busier form of emptiness.

Doing our research, we realized that the same Dutch-sounding surname composed a New York Times piece that made us cry on the train out to Rockaway beach this summer. It was about raising his daughter single-handedly, after losing his wife to cancer, and how "close up, human life is tragic, but from a distance, it’s funny."

I’m rather a messy shaver. Afraid I might get shaving cream on her dress, I said: “Please keep me company, Madeleine. But don’t get too close.” Then I laughed, realizing that what I’d said characterizes the nature of my adult relationships. Madeleine smiled up at me, and in my heart, I thought,
“Get as close as you like.”