About Me

My first novel, Angie, I Says, draws on my time working in offices in Manhattan, and an overheard conversation on the subway. It was a New York Times Notable Book and was made into the movie Angie, starring Geena Davis, James Gandolfini and Stephen Rea. My second book, After Isaac, was written for a YA audience. I am an adoptive mother, and the story of After Isaac came out of my experience researching an article I wrote for Adoptive Families magazine. My poems have been published in The American Journal of Poetry, The Hollins Critic, Cimarron Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Dunes Review, among other places. I’ve written personal essays that appeared in the New York Times. My memoir, Stride: How I Walked Away from Trauma Toward Healing, chronicles my recovery from an accident that left me disabled. I was formerly an adjunct professor of English at Kingsborough Community College, and have been leading a writing workshop at the Center for Independence of the Disabled New York since 2008. I have three grown children, and live in Brooklyn with my husband and two cats.

Stride
How I Walked Away from Trauma Toward Healing

Now available!

I needed a new winter jacket. The EMTs had cut through my old one in order to attach the IV to prevent me from going into shock. Now it was September, and I had been out of the hospital and rehab for a few months. I had made it through the spring and summer, and, even though it was still warm most days, I was looking ahead.