As the daughter of a sculptor, I grew up watching my mother chisel and carve pieces of wood, stone, and clay, until she brought out what she saw inside. She said what the materials ultimately revealed of themselves often surprised her. To me, the essence of writing is much the same - sculpting a story with words, with the expectation that it might not become the story you thought it was.
A Day of Small Beginnings (Little, Brown & Co, 2006) took me to Poland, where astonishing events and the look of actual places I'd only read about did not match what I thought I knew of the country. They profoundly changed the novel I thought I was writing.
My commissioned play, Stories from the Violins of Hope, which began with a list describing a collection of violins that survived the Holocaust, revealed itself to me dramatically as the story of an Israeli violin maker who brought these instruments back to life and to the world.
For over a decade, it's been my honor and privilege to work with The Braid (formerly Jewish Women’s Theatre) - watching actors give voice to my ten minute plays and serving the company as dramaturg, programmer and moderator, playwright, and advisory board member.