Biographical Sketch

Origins:
After my mother’s death when I was 17 months old, my father took me to Brooklyn where I grew up in an extended tri-generational, bi-lingual family of story tellers, poets, dreamers, who lured me into the magical world of language. As an imaginative, only child, poets and writers became my closest friends. My Jewish immigrant grandmother’s need to work in the sweatshops (for family survival), precluded an education. Hence, she could neither read nor write in English, and through her, I learned how language can shut one out as well as draw one in. Out of this heritage, my love and respect for language grew, my appreciation of the magic and power of words.

Personal Adult Life:
Marriage, 5 children, divorce, Welfare, single parenting (while attending college). Through it all, writing. Publishing sporadically. Survival philosophies include: feminism, holistic therapies, an eclectic spiritual path grounded in progressive Judaism, the Divine Feminine and our matriarchal roots.

Education:
A.A. English Literature, Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham, Or., 1968.
B.A. English Literature, Reed College (scholarship), Portland, Or., 1972.
M.A. Creative Writing (focus on women poets), University of Washington, Seattle, WA., 1980.

Current Professional Work:
Member of the English faculty, North Seattle Community College.
Founder, in 1981, of “Self-Discovery for Women through Creative Writing,” a writing community for women of all ages, backgrounds, including new and experienced writers. At NSCC Cont. Ed. since 1984.
Independent writing classes, workshops, retreats, etc. for women and for mixed groups, at UW Women’s Center, Cancer Lifeline, in the community-at-large.
Co-founder (with Cele Andrews) and coordinator of “After Long Silence,” a monthly reading series for women poets and writers (since 1987), now expanded to include male voices.

Publications:
Backbone (Seal Press), Bridges, Calyx, Chrysanthemum, Crab Creek Review, Cutbank, Jewish Currents, Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, King County Arts Commission Licton Springs, Literary Arts, Metro Bus Poems, Northwest Poets & Writers Calendar, Poetry Northwest, Real Change, Seattle Review, Sinister Wisdom, Switched-on Gutenberg, Voices Israel, We’Moon, etc. Anthologies: Beacon Press “Claiming the Spirit Within”; Best American Poetry; Chester Jones; Pontoon; Syracuse UP “Here’s to the Women”;Women’s International Peace Anthology, etc.

Grants and Honors:
Barbara Deming grant,  Hedgebrook residency, Seattle Arts Commission grant; poem, “The Healing Time,”placed 1st  in national contest sponsored by N.Y.Arts Commission, Juror’s Choice in Spindrift, 3rd place in Crab Creek Review contest based on a William Stafford poem, CrossCurrents 1st place award in statewide faculty contest, Tale of an Immigrant Woman chapbook included in University of Naples Women’s Studies course, Tale of An Immigrant Woman chapbook translated into Chinese and placed in Malaysian library, etc.

Poetry & Community  Activism:
I have given and continue to give readings in support of various causes: fundraiser for Afghanistan Women; “Women take back the Night” rally; pro-choice rally; Seattle Rape Relief rally, resulting in the creation of tee shirts with Tonantzin, the Aztec goddess (based on my poem about rape),and worn by the Seattle Rape Relief baseball team; coordinated several International Women’s Day events featuring multicultural voices; my poem, “Sarah and Hagar,” (a midrash on peace in the Middle East), presented with music and dance performers in churches, synagogues and universities, then traveled to the Middle East with performers where the poem was presented to Israeli and Palestinian audiences, in support of their often unacknowledged risk-taking efforts as peaceworkers.

When I worked as a Poet-in-the-Schools, I arranged to have student poems included in the weekly grocery sale sheets, a reflection of my belief that poetry belongs to the people and needs to be shared in the community. Also, when I teach haiku in the park, I encourage students to tie their poems onto the branches of trees for others to read and take, if they choose.