Look and Listen

Biography

I grew up in Elgin, Illinois, and attended Michigan State University, majoring in journalism and working on the State News, at which I met my future husband. I accompanied my ROTC husband while he was on active army duty to Ft. Knox, Kentucky; Ft. Holabird, Maryland; and Munich, Germany. When we returned to the U.S., I worked as a journalist in Philadelphia before earning an M.B.A. at The Wharton School and moving to Los Angeles. I have always written. I remember at a young age getting second place in a poetry contest at overnight Y camp. I spent one whole summer typing a novel about children who lived in the White House. And I still have the stories I wrote, including "Elizabeth Jane's History Through History" -- about a doll with many owners. I have also always been a reader. In my hometown there wasn't much to do. My younger brother and I spent the summers reading books from the Elgin Public Library and swimming in the free public pool. My husband and my two daughters also love books. Our house overflows with books in all kinds of fiction and nonfiction areas. Occasionally I give books away so that I can cram more new books onto the numerous bookcases. And I frequently read several books at once -- which one at any exact moment depending on my mood.

Inspiration

My inspiration for MRS. LIEUTENANT:A SHARON GOLD NOVEL is the women's movement and my exposure to the life of a military wife. In all the books and movies on Vietnam that I've read or seen, the women's point of view isn't given. Even in the 1978 Jane Fonda Vietnam movie "Coming Home," Jane's character -- the wife of a military man -- doesn't give her opinion of the war. On the night before her husband ships out to Vietnam, he tells his wife's opinion of the war to his buddy. But we the film audience have no idea if that's what his wife actually thinks. Almost 20 years ago I told my own officer's wife story to two women producers. They were so interested they optioned the story for a movie. Then they couldn't sell the movie without anything in writing, so they told me to write the novel. By the time I wrote the novel, they had moved on to other projects. And so I wrote and rewrote and took writing classes and read writing books and had a Jewish holiday book co-written with Rabbi Karen Fox published in 1992 (SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION) and revised and revised the novel that would eventually become MRS. LIEUTENANT. It took me so long to get the novel in the shape it is that there's now another unpopular war. Although with an all-volunteer army instead of a draft, the reactions to this new war are not nearly as vocal as the reactions to the Vietnam War. Still, I want to preserve part of the historic record of that past war. And on the website for the novel -- www.mrslieutenant.com -- are some of the original documents of that long-ago time in 1970 when I was a Mrs. Lieutenant -- and had to learn how to be a proper officer's wife.