Molli

Molli Sébrier moved to Paris in 2014 when she decided to leave her American life behind and pursue her dream of becoming a writer. When living abroad, Molli earned her master’s degree in English Studies with a concentration in literature and now owns a digital content boutique called Plume, which acquired The American in Paris in 2024. She met her now-husband Pierre in 2017, and the pair decided to give US living a try in 2022. Now, they are working on obtaining double nationality for both of them as they excitedly await the arrival of their first baby in March 2026. You can follow her journey on Instagram @mollisebrier, and the taipontape YouTube channel.

Stephen

Stephen Heiner began this blog a few weeks before he moved to Paris in late 2013, as he started to document his move to Europe, where he had not lived since he was a student in 2000 in Rome.  He sold an educational company in the US in 2012 and came to France not quite sure of what was next or how long he would stay.  He tried out several different new businesses (with varying levels of success) before founding Writerly in 2016 to help businesses in Europe and around the world share great content with their current and potential clients.  To see what else he gets up to, you can check out his personal website, where you can also find his social media feeds.

Marlene has spent half a century as an American living in Paris and half of that as French, too. As a fence-sitting, half & half person she looks at her two cultures both from within and without. There are days when she loves Paris and couldn’t think of living anywhere else, and others where she wonders what she is doing here. She wrote her thesis on child bilingualism which got her a position at the French National Education teachers’ college in Paris training teachers to teach English in primary school where she did her best to improve language teaching in the French school system. She is always happy to share with others her long experience in France, its pains,  pleasures, paradoxes and a better understanding of the culture into which she has integrated.

Jackie

As we came together to refound TAIP as a collaborative project, we set forth four key values, which we ask all our guest contributors to follow as well:

Optimism — Americans are very much the “everything is awesome” people and we lean into that.  We are “solutions-oriented” and wholly uninterested in the French tradition of complaining.

Integrity — We only want to share verifiable information.  When necessary we will call out misinformation, especially when such misinformation is used to drive a financial agenda.

Accessibility — We want our content to be well-written yet understandable by all.

Authentic — While this is not a personal blog (anymore) we do want to be emotionally vulnerable/open when appropriate.