Masha Hamilton is a United States journalist and the author of five novels. She founded two world literacy projects and has worked as head of communications for the US Embassy in Afghanistan and the NGO Concern Worldwide US. 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, published the following year. She also wrote Staircase of a Thousand Steps, The Distance Between Us, 31 Hours, and What Changes Everything. She started two world literacy projects: the Camel Book Drive to help the camel-powered library in Northeast Kenya, begun in 2007, and the Afghan Women's Writing Project, to foster the voices of Afghan women, begun in 2009.