From the time I was old enough to decipher words, my Yiddisher mama told me stories, showing me what it meant to bear witness to personal narratives.
Growing up during the Thatcher era on a council housing estate, where poverty was rife, I was not considered “college material,” and left school with no qualifications.
It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I returned to education and got my teaching degree. I have since worked as a college and university lecturer in the U.K., and taught middle school children, teens and elders in the U.S.A.
My first foray into writing came when I won a competition in 1999 for a short television drama. The film “Kissing Buba” was based upon a visit to my Russian immigrant grandmother. It was commissioned by Anglia TV and the BBC, and aired on regional television and in various film festivals.
In 2002, I moved to Los Angeles, where I gained my MFA in Creative Non Fiction at the University of California, Riverside. Upon graduating I completed an internship in mental health psychosocial rehabilitation, working at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services in Los Angeles, using memoir as a tool to aid self-expression and recovery.
My work has appeared in the Guardian UK, the New York Times, the Washington Post, KCRW UnFictional, KCET Departures, Sinister Wisdom, and other literary journals.
I am a recipient of the Marcia McQuern Award for Creative Nonfiction, and a 2012 alumni of Squaw Valley Community of Writers.
In 2017, I volunteered as an advocate at Psychosis Summit – South Bay Project Resource where I interviewed peers and family members with lived experience of psychosis. As a nature lover, I trained as a docent at Ano Nuevo elephant seal sanctuary.
I currently live in London.
To order ZIG-ZAG BOY: MADNESS, MOTHERHOOD & LETTING GO in the UK, please visit: Harper Collins. To order in the USA, please visit: WW Norton.