MY BOOKS

I am proud to say that my short stories have been published in the following book anthologies.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Power of Positive: 101 Inspirational Stories about Changing Your Life through Positive Thinking (2012)

Attitude is everything. And this book will uplift and inspire readers with its stories about the power of positive thinking! In bad times, and good, readers will be encouraged to keep a positive attitude.

Chicken Soup for the Tea Lover’s Soul: Stories Steeped in Comfort (2007)

Is enjoying a cup of tea the favorite part of your day? Is the brewing of a ‘cuppa’ a ritual that centers and calms you? Reconnect with the silent intimacy and introspection experienced while sipping tea.

Chicken Soup for the Chocolate Lover’s Soul: Indulging in Our Sweetest Moments (2007)

If you can’t live without a daily bite of chocolate, have visions of chocolate truffles dancing in your head, you will savor the decadence of this collection of stories.

Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul: Your Personal, Portable Support Group with Stories of Healing, Hope, Love and Resilience (2005)

Find inspiration for change and personal growth in each story as people in this dynamic community share their experiences of transformation, of lives reclaimed, of relationships renewed and futures full of promise.

Chicken Soup for the College Soul: Inspiring and Humorous Stories About College (1998)

A collection of stories meant to guide, inspire, support and encourage readers throughout their college experiences.

At Grandmother’s Table: Women Write about Food, Life and the Enduring Bond between Grandmothers and Granddaughters (2001)

What would you give for an afternoon in your grandmother’s kitchen? Leaning over the countertop, you watched as she added the flour, just a little at a time, to the bowl. It seemed like magic.

The Ultimate Christmas: The Best Experts’ Advice for a Memorable Season with Stories and Photos of Holiday Magic (2008)

An entertaining, touching, and uplifting collection of true stories and awe-inspiring photographs of holiday magic, love, family — and a bit of mania.

and

This past year I had the pleasure of working with rock icon Frank Zappa’s younger brother Bobby Zappa on this coming of age memoir. The book is full of rich stories that will stay with me always. It would be fun to go back and tell my teenage self that in 2015 I would have this wonderful opportunity to write about one of my favorite musicians. To learn more visit Bobby’s website: bobzappa.com.

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I just finished editing My ASJA Conference Notes! Now they are legible enough to share with you in a Google Doc. This Google Doc contains my “scribblings” from the panels that I attended at this year’s #ASJA writers conference. I also added a few post-conference bits. Please note, these were written for myself but it would take me too long to go in and delete all of my side comments (Like, “Hahaha” or “Weeeee!”) so those were left in. Please feel free to ignore those side commentaries. I promise you there is a ton of useful info for all writers in this doc.

This year, I spoke on two panels, which I’ve done for many years. One panel was “Use Social Media to Land Writing Gigs and Make Money” and here’s a link to my social media handout.

My second panel was “Secrets of Interviewing Famous People.”

For any writer who doesn’t already know, ASJA is the American Society of Journalists and Authors. It is a non-profit organization for writers to network with each other and with editors, publishers, agents. This org has been incredibly helpful to me and is a big chunk of what helped me become a full-time freelance writer.

The other great boost to my writing career came after I’d published a few short stories and a couple of articles. I decided to get serious about full-time writing and took Susan Shapiro’s “Instant Gratification Takes Too Long” essay classes. The idea is to write and sell a piece during the class to pay for the class. She’s a phenomenal teacher and I love to tell people about her.

Speakers quoted in my notes include:

Susan Shapiro, author and professor

Daniel Jones, Modern Love editor, NYTimes

Honor Jones, Opinionator editor, NYTimes (no relation to Daniel)

Rob Spillman, editor at Tin House literary magazine

and many more…

Laura Shin, Catherine Dold, Linda Konner, John Hanc, Susan Lennon, Beena Kamlani, Kirby Kim, Renee Zuckerbrot, Victoria Moy, Katia Bachko, Whitney Frick, Molly Langmuir, David Lidsky, Jessica Winter, Royal Young, Kate Walter, Gabrielle Selz, Kevin Scott Hall, Sharon Goldman, Alicianne Rand, Clare McDermott, Laura Lorber, Allison Mezzafonte, Jack El-Hai, Tina Traster, Laurie Chittenden, Tracy Bernstein, Shaun Dolan, Kathleen Napolitano, Sherri Amatenstein

Tutorials

Please contact me if you’d like to learn social media tips and tricks that can land you writing gigs and sell your books. I give classes in person or via Skype or telephone. If you email me with the subject line #ASJA2010 or #BEA15 and let me know that you are contacting me to set up a lesson, I will give you the discounted price of $80 per hour. My normal fee is $100/hour.

We will discuss your specific business goals and who your target audience is. Then I will provide you with instruction tailored to your unique needs.

In addition to social media, I teach branding, marketing and SEO (search engine optimization).

Click here for my Google Doc of ASJA Conference Notes

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The first time I talked about the rape I was 26 and in a therapist’s office. “I can help you,” the counselor, Mary, said, “but it won’t be a quick fix.” My neck tensed up. I started bouncing my knee. Mary didn’t react. Her eyes were looking into mine: It was time to let go and get better.

At 13 I was a lonely Jewish nerd and straight A student living on Long Island, envious of popular girls who attracted boys. It was 1973 and guys who wore black leather jackets and smoked Marlboros looked hot so when “Elle” asked me to join her friends in the cemetery that night I agreed.

At home I looked for my new clingy shirt that Elle told me to wear without a bra. But it wasn’t there.

I called Mom, “Where’s my new shirt?” She called back: “I hid it. It makes you look…well, slutty.”

When Mom left I found the shirt, put it on and looked in the mirror, staring at my cleavage. I was a woman now. I also wore hip hugger jeans so a sliver of my belly showed. That’s what Elle did and I figured if I dressed right I would get a boyfriend.

When I met Elle and her friends the September sun had set. I thought it was weird to meet in a cemetery, but I was excited to be included. One boy, Willy, was 15, and sometimes we joked around at lunch. As we hung out listening to a big radio, smoking cigarettes and drinking Heinekens and no-name vodka, the girls and their boyfriends wandered off, leaving me alone and feeling like a loser. So when Willy smiled and motioned “c’mere” I practically skipped over.

He grabbed me, clamped his hand over my mouth and threw me on the ground. Then three other boys surrounded me and I realized this was planned.

Two boys pulled my pants down while a third pushed his hand up my shirt and grabbed a breast. He pushed on it hard. A different hand mauled my other breast. My pants were now down by my ankles; two boys pulled off my sneaker to get my pant leg off. They needed to widen my legs. Fingers shoved up me. I felt a penis in my mouth. I tried to scream, but it came out muffled. They laughed. I gagged. They took turns. “You better watch out,” one yelled. “She might bite it off!” They laughed some more and then ran off. It was over.

I pulled my clothes on and ran in a circle screaming. Elle and Bobby ran over and carried me to Elle’s house, where I spent a sleepless night. In the morning, my plan was to forget that night ever happened. I was too ashamed to tell my parents or my two older sisters.

For the next 13 years I lived by silently screaming at my memories. If I hadn’t worn the low-cut shirt, maybe the rape wouldn’t have happened. Telling my parents would’ve meant admitting to my stupidity and I was too proud for that. One day I tried to tell a teacher after class. I stood by her desk shifting my weight from one foot to the other. But I was afraid of being shunned at school if I reported it, so all I said was “See you tomorrow.”

I began drinking Bacardi rum and diet Coke and swallowing speed capsules hoping to forget. I forged Mom and Dad’s handwriting to sign myself out of school early. Then I’d go out on the big field, lie down on my back, and let my mind roam, while I tripped on acid.

I embraced tight sexy shirts and skin hugging pants and by the time I was 15, I was sneaking off to clubs in the city where it was easy to get drugs and find guys who dazzled me like shiny disco globes.

I fancied myself a feminist — if I seduced boys first it gave me the upper hand and they couldn’t hurt me. At home I stared at the poster of my best friend Jimi Hendrix who was dead. But I talked to him because he understood. And I thought of suicide all the time. One day I went to the train station and jumped onto the tracks with a speeding train aimed at me, but I thought about being maimed and not killed. Life would be worse without legs. I sucked my breath and made myself as thin as I could so the train didn’t touch me.

I was obviously troubled so my parents sent me to one therapist after another. But I fooled all of them and was proud of that. I chased euphoria. I swallowed more pills, snorted coke and drank. By 17, I was shooting cocaine. Sometimes I looked at my eyes in the mirror and it scared me how far away I looked. I couldn’t forget how helpless I had felt that night in the cemetery.

Nine years later, I graduated from college, found an apartment in Greenwich Village and landed a job as a graphic artist. But I was still haunted by memories. Alone in my room, I snorted cocaine out of paper packets and drank. One day at six a.m. I came out of a blackout sitting cross-legged on my bed surrounded by ripped photos of my artwork with suicidal song lyrics gouged into them with a ballpoint pen. It was my handwriting, but I had no memory of my actions.

I saw bugs scampering across the bed. No matter how often I blinked they were still there. I would’ve welcomed death at that point, but the fear I was losing my mind hit me so hard I reached over the empty bottles and picked up the phone to call my cousin Ang. She took me to Hazelden rehab in Florida.

That 31-day stay took out my brains, washed them and wrung out the toxins. I talked to my counselor Mary in the quiet room and told her what the boys did and how I had tried so hard to forget. She was the first person to say I had post-traumatic-stress disorder.

Clean and sober and terrified that I couldn’t stay that way, I went back to my life in the Village. I met Maddy who was kind and gentle. We began to hang out and go to parties.   I still dressed for men to look at me and watched their eyes scan my cleavage, my thighs, my face, my legs. At one party Maddy put her black cardigan around me. “Cover up,” she said. The miracle is that when I buttoned it up, I didn’t feel ashamed. I felt loved. I told her about that horrible night.

“You were raped and it wasn’t your fault,” she said. I cried and she hugged me tight.          

The longer I fought to stay sober, the more I learned that talking about the pain was the first thing that would heal me. But I couldn’t open up to my mother until I was 37. Her dark olive skin turned white and she cried. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and begged her not to tell my father.

By 46 I was sick of the men I’d been choosing. Then I met Steve in a neighborhood movie theater. We got to chatting and I wanted to touch his wispy blond-gray hair. His eyes seemed soft as they looked right into mine. His angular cheekbones looked strong, like I’d be safe with him. He was a writer and he invited me to his Barnes & Noble book reading. It was standing room only. Afterwards I bought a book and Steve grinned when he wrote, “To the prettiest girl.” Our first date was brunch and a movie and we’ve been together ever since. When I told Steve about that night I showed him a photo of me at 13. He teared up and said, “You were such a little girl.” Our first December he gave me a thermal shirt with a card that said, “I want to keep you warm.”

Now, I’m 52 and Steve and I have been married for two years. Like my friendship with Maddy, our bond fills me with courage. Every time we share dark pieces of the past we grow closer. It smells so sweet when I bury my face in his hair.

***

It’s afternoon and I’m rushing to get to a film premiere for press only. I now interview celebrities and review movies and love my work and my hectic life. I reach in my closet,   pick a light blue button-down, and check my camera battery. Just before I leave, Steve comes over and hugs me. He says, “Good luck.” I start to walk towards the door, but he says, “Hey,” and I turn to look at him.  He smiles wide and says, “You look like a pro in that shirt.”

I know he’s right and I smile back.

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