Kate Cohen, a Washington Post contributing columnist, is a writer from Albany, New York. She grew up in Virginia and has a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Dartmouth College. Her essays seek to distill observations of family, politics, and culture into moments of clarity and insight. She also writes nonfiction documentary scripts, including the Emmy Award–winning “Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero” and the Gold Panda Award–winning “How China Works.” She is the author of two other books, A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding and The Neppi Modona Diaries: Reading Jewish Survival through My Italian Family.