A Polish Poet, a Modern Odyssey, and a Swarm of Questions

In the fall of 1996, a Polish poet named Wisława Szymborska emerged from behind the Iron Curtain to claim the world’s highest literary honor. At the time, she became only the ninth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, an award first given in 1901.

See: Wisława Szymborska, courtesy of Foundation Wisława Szymborska

Szymborska lived most of her life in Kraków, an enchanting city that has endured partitions, war, and dictatorship. Much of her poetry turns to the overlooked: an onion, a beetle, a bus ride. From the ordinary, she showed the world that beauty and creativity are all around us:

“Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners – and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve.”

- Wisława Szymborska, Nobel Prize Lecture

Born to Greek parents, Maria Glymph grew up moving from country to country before her family eventually settled in the United States. By the time she finished high school, she had already lived in multiple cultures and learned to adapt to unfamiliar settings. Reading became her anchor during that constant movement.

That early experience of change left her not only comfortable with uncertainty but energized by it. Exploration became second nature; new challenges felt like opportunities to discover what might come next.

After building a diverse career and a consulting practice in Houston, she moved to Germany to serve as a vice president in change management at Bayer, then to Switzerland, where she held senior roles at Novartis and Roche. Each move brought complexity, challenge, and more responsibility.

And yet, in January 2023, Maria made the decision to leave the corporate world, to close that chapter, and found Modern Odyssey Books, an independent publishing house that champions narratives that wander, question, and stretch beyond convention. It was not a simple leap. Starting a company is never easy, and doing so while living outside one’s home country adds another layer of complexity.

Fewer face-to-face interactions with the networks that once anchored you.

The tangle of financial, legal, and operational hurdles.

Constant translation between industries and how they operate.

Still, for Maria, adventure and challenge have always been sources of energy. Founding Modern Odyssey Books was both a risk and a continuation of the life she’d been building all along.

In the short time since its founding, Modern Odyssey has published poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, steadily building a community of readers around the idea that books can be both artistic and adventurous, ordinary and unexpected.

Maria’s own writing reflects the breadth of her journey. Her first collection, Barn Quilt: Poems, published in 2024, stitches together fragments of memory and place, grief and loss, with the precision of a quilt pattern. The poems are grounded in details that invite readers to pause and notice the overlooked, much in the spirit of Szymborska herself.

Later that year, she released Hope, Time, and Other Things That Are Hard to Measure, a novella about a camel named Caleb who journeys through unexpected encounters. The protagonist finds meaning through the act of wandering, a theme that resonates deeply with Maria’s own philosophy of embracing change.

This summer, she published another novella titled Biography of Deception, set in the confines of a single conference room, where nine people gather on an ordinary Monday and experience the unraveling of unexpected secrets. The story examines truth, concealment, and how much of human interaction is shaped by what we choose not to reveal.

Maria has also developed a series of literature-inspired puzzle books designed to help readers unwind while reconnecting with the classics that have shaped modern literature. From Austen and Dickens to Homer and the Brontë sisters, these books turn timeless stories into interactive experiences—word searches, cryptographs, and more.

See: Modern Odyssey Puzzle Books

And earlier this year, the press published A Line Drawn or Printed: Six Routes Through Madrid, by Jayne Marshall, a collection of essays and stories that follow a woman’s midlife move from the UK to Madrid in search of reinvention, adventure, and meaning. It’s a brilliant narrative about the immigration experience set against the backdrop of commuter trains and the cadence of the Spanish capital.

“I wanted to publish more than just my work and my ideas. I wanted to build a company and bring forward stories by emerging authors, fresh voices, different perspectives.”

— Maria Glymph

When Maria and I met for lunch at the Schützenhaus, one of Basel’s most storied gathering places, we talked about Modern Odyssey Books, about living in Switzerland, and about the long process of learning German.

See: Schützenhaus Basel, Courtesy of Schützenhaus-basel.ch

The conversation then wound easily from what we were reading, to my research, to her life and writing.

A swarm of new questions emerging from every answer.

Creating. Meaning. Everywhere.

Thanks for reading about Maria and Modern Odyssey Books.

This fall I’ll be teaching in Boston and traveling around the world to meet with people who are creating meaningful change in their communities.

About 3–4 times a month, I’ll share reflections on what I’m learning—stories from the road, insights from my work with entrepreneurs and leaders, and thoughts on how we create meaning through what we build.

If that resonates, I’d love for you to follow along.