Author Talk: Street Corner Dreams with Florence Reiss Kraut

Please join us in the Scott Room, where Florence Reiss Kraut will discuss her new novel, Street Corner Dreams.

Street Corner Dreams is a suspenseful family saga, love story and gangster tale wrapped into one great book club read.  Just before WWI, Golda comes to America yearning for independence, but she tosses aside her dreams of freedom and instead marries her widowed brother-in-law after her sister dies giving birth to their son, Morty.  In Street Corner Dreams, her second work of historical fiction, Florence Reiss Kraut, explores a timeless question: how much do we owe the families that have sacrificed for and shaped us—and does that debt outweigh what we owe ourselves and our own hopes and dreams for a better life?

Florence Reiss Kraut was raised and educated in New York City.  She holds a BA in English and a Master’s Degree in social work.  She worked for thirty years as a clinician, a family therapist, and CEO of a family service agency while writing stories and essays for publication. She retired to devote herself to writing and traveling widely. She has published personal essays for the New York Times and her fiction has appeared in journals such as The Evening Street Press, SN Review, The Westchester Review and others. She lives with her husband in Rye, New York. Florence’s first book, How To Make A Life, came out in October 2020 to critical acclaim and has been shortlisted for several prizes. Her second novel, Street Corner Dreams, was just published on November 14, 2023.