Hamilton worked as a foreign correspondent for the
Associated Press for five years in the Middle East, where she covered the
First Intifada, the peace process, and the partial Israeli withdrawal from
Lebanon. She spent five years in
Moscow, where she was a
Los Angeles Times correspondent and reported for
NBC/Mutual Radio. She wrote about politics as well as average Russian's life during the collapse of the Soviet Union. She reported from
Afghanistan in both 2004 and 2008. In 2006, she traveled in
Kenya to research the novel
The Camel Bookmobile (2007), published by HarperCollins. She had previously published the books
Staircase of a Thousand Steps (2001),
The Distance Between Us (2004),
31 Hours (2009), and
What Changes Everything (2013). ==World literacy projects==