Mia Kirshner, most recently seen as Jenny on “The L Word,” is also an author, and I Live Here is not just another Hollywood starlet story.

It’s about her trips to four messy and malignant parts of the world — the Russian republic of Ingushetia; Burma; Juarez, Mexico; and Malawi — that have large disenfranchised populations. Kirshner tells the stories about the women and children in these places through journal entries, collages, photographs, paintings an more with the help of co-authors J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons.

The trips were made over a six-year period. Kirshner, 33, told the Los Angeles Times she wanted to do something that mattered after working on a show after Sept. 11, 2001, made her feel “pretty dead inside.” (She’s also been on “24,” and “Wolf Lake.”). She first organized a benefit for Afghan women, and then decided to focus on “people who are in war or displaced or living, basically, in an extremity.”

“I did this in the most foolish way,” she said recently. “I spent my savings on the book.

“But, you know, it’s worth it. And I also felt like I didn’t really want to ask for outside funding until I knew I was proud of the material.”

Source: kansascity.com