Look and Listen

Biography

I was born in New York City and grew up amid the eccentricity of my southern and glamorous mother on the Upper West and Upper East Side of Manhattan. An only child, I turned to reading novels at an early age and was deeply influenced by an eclectic group of authors. My early favorites were Look Homeward Angel, Atlas Shrugged, Portrait of a Lady, War and Peace and anything and everything by F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as so many others. I won awards for acting during my years in Jr. High School and High School so I went on to work in the professional theatre for many years, falling further in love with the works of Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neil, Lillian Hellmann, and Sam Shepherd. I appeared in television, regional theatre, film and off Broadway. After ten years in the theatre, I developed a passion for art history, film theory and philosophy. To nurture my many interests, and quell a growing dismay with theatre as a profession, I enrolled at Hunter College through the CUNY BA/BS program from the City University of New York. I received a degree in Communications and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1982. I went on to earn a Masters in Educational Theatre from New York University and took an honorary withdrawal from Actors Equity, SAG and AFTRA. For the next decade, I became a teacher and seminar/workshop leader. At the New Lincoln School, I taught creative writing, drama and English to middle school and high school students. I also taught the craft of acting to adult professionals at various colleges and adult centers. In the mid eighties, I developed a seminar for artists that focused on teaching the business of being an artist entitled: The Reality of the Dream. This on-going workshop received successful feedback for me and was presented at many artists forums, acting schools and colleges around the tri-state area. A financial mid-life crisis forced me into corporate life at the age of fifty. I worked as an education territory manager for The New York Times and as a Project Manager for the Education department of the New York Daily News. I have also worked for Scholastic Inc and Oxford University Press. I am very grateful for my years in corporate America for it during this period that I discovered the importance of creativity. Over the last few years I have completed five novels and I have developed my newest workshop/seminar: The Corporate Crunch: Get Creative or Crack. This seminar/workshop is presently available for bookings, as well as my earlier workshop for artists. Dancing Backward In Paradise is my first published novel. My second novel, Hearts Upon a Fragile Bough was published in 2009 and will be followed by a sequel in 2010. I have also published short stories and curriculum. My published curriculum has been for Weekly Reader and McGraw Hill.

Inspiration

I am inspired by other writers. I love words, poetry and music. I am always inspired by the rhythm of language. Sunshine inspires me to walk and desire, to dream. Mostly, people inspire me by their compassion, by their humanity. I find my plots in the petals of flowers and my characters in the contours of imagination. I am inspired by life, nature and this great, strong bond I discover when I write, a bond to some higher power. I find a higher self, flawed characters, lovable people that fit the jagged pieces of the crossword puzzle of memory and spew out, as though I had nothing to do with it.