Photo credit: Michael Hirtle

I grew up in New York City, a place I hold close to my heart and love to write about. When I was 23, my husband and I moved to western Massachusetts because it was “a compromise between Brooklyn and the Ozarks.” (He was the one who wanted to live in the Ozarks!) We lived in Northampton, a small college town, for seventeen years, before moving twenty-five years ago to an old farmhouse in a rural neighboring town, next door to 600 cows. Here’s a picture of the view outside my window, a far cry from the skyscrapers of New York.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was eight and I began to publish in literary magazines back when I was in my early twenties, during the time I was living in Brooklyn and attending 3-5 poetry readings every week. I met my husband at one of those readings, in a fifth-floor walk-up in Greenwich Village. After we moved to Massachusetts, I began to get interested in longer fiction, and eventually published my two young adult novels, Escaping Into the Night and Playing Dad’s Song. However, I’ve continued over the years to write poetry, as well as other long and short fiction, and I’ve now published in more than 100 literary journals, earning four Pushcart Prize nominations. Four years ago, I published my first poetry chapbook, Wolf in the Suitcase.

Since retiring from UMass in 2019, I’ve been able to devote much more time to writing. I’m excited to have two new books in the past year: Immigrants—a short story collection, published by Creators Press in 2023, and a second chapbook, Here in Sanctuary–Whirling forthcoming from Querencia Press in February 2024. Both of these books draw from my work on immigration justice and my trips to the U.S./Mexico border and the Homestead Children’s Detention Center. Here is a podcast featuring two poems connected to my work witnessing at the border. On a completely different theme, I’ve also written a yet-to-be published memoir, Imperfect Pitch, and started a blog on Substack on how to live a creative life in a creatively challenged universe.

Here’s a profile of me in the wonderful blog, Starry, Starry Kite, that features some of my newer work.

In my experience, the hardest thing about writing is to keep going and believe in yourself. In the many years that I’ve taught writing (either through creative writing workshops or formal college classes) I’ve tried to provide encouragement and empowerment, even when giving critical feedback. Two sets of people have been instrumental in my own ability to persevere. The first is my mentor, Pat Schneider, of Amherst Writers & Artists, whose optimism and gentle guidance in helping writers find their deepest and truest voice continues to have a profound effect on my writing process. The second is my writing group extraordinaire. Jeannine, Lisa, Bruce and I have met every few weeks for over twenty years, giving our honest appraisal of each other’s work in progress and supporting each other in submissions, negotiating contracts, and marketing.

While writing is one of the central things in my life, equally important is working for a better world. My activism includes anti-poverty work, Middle East peace issues, immigrant justice, anti-war campaigns, and land protection issues. One of the highlights of my organizing was working on “Save the Mountain,” a local campaign that succeeded in protecting our unspoiled Mt. Holyoke range from a 40-home luxury development. I hiked in these woods almost every day with my dog, Lefty, a husky-shepherd, and as I wrote Escaping into the Night, I was captivated by imagining how the woods could be home. Even though Lefty passed away a long time ago, I continue to walk with my “virtual dog” nearly every day.
Like Gus and Liza’s home life in Playing Dad’s Song, my family life also revolves around music and food. My daughter, Alana, a classical pianist is also a personal chef specializing in gluten-free vegetarian cooking, with yummy recipes on her blog, The Smiling Onion.  Rafael, no slouch in the kitchen, is a songwriter, educator, and organizer who performs under the name, Flight or Visibility. I play piano and guitar, and for years, I belonged to a very part-time klezmer band called the Hot Kishkes, where I first learned “The Russian Waltz,” mentioned in Escaping Into the Night. And as for food, our idea of a fabulous outing, whether we’re home or traveling, is to go to food markets and buy all sorts of exotic ingredients to either consume on the spot or use to concoct a sumptuous international meal completed by a fancy (usually chocolate) dessert.

Here are we all are enjoying ourselves with a yummy picnic at the Tanglewood music festival: Alana, Bobby (Alana’s husband), Rafael, Nick (Raf’s partner) Shel and me.

And here I am with my beloved pet Rufus, the writing whisperer.