Program Description
Event Details
Scarsdale Library Writers Center Presents…
Join us once a month when the writers from our critique group program and other local authors present their short essays, poetry or book excerpts, all revolving around a theme. Here’s your chance to be moved by the creativity and talent of your local friends and neighbors — and to get the scoop on their upcoming publications! Watch our bulletin or social media for each month’s theme and the readers who’ll be appearing!
Follow on social media:
www.Facebook.com/WritersCenterScarsdaleLibrary for updates on which local authors will be reading!
Diana Harmon Asher is the author of SIDETRACKED, which was an ABA "Indies Introduce" title and an ALA Notable Book. She is the mother of three grown sons and lives in Edgemont with her husband, Henry, and their dog and cat. Her second novel, UPSTAGED, was published on March 16, 2021, and moves from muddy running trails to the middle school musical stage.
Dawn M. Ciciola has been a member of the original Scarsdale Writers Group founded in 2013, which was first moderated by Jimin Han and later by Barbara Solomon Josselsohn. Dawn is a Professor of Spanish Language and Culture at Iona College since 2012 and Manhattanville College since 2017. She lives in Crestwood, New York with her husband, daughter and companion canine Kaua’i. ”
Susan Upton Douglass I practiced law for over 39 years, spending most of my career at the New York City law firm Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, specializing in trademark, copyright and licensing law. I was recognized by my peers as one of four leading trademark lawyers in the U.S., an “Expert’s Expert” and a “Thought Leader.” I am a certified yoga teacher, and teach yoga daily via Zoom. I choreographed to specially commissioned music a two-volume yoga DVD called Aspirational Yoga Dances (available at www.aspirationalyoga.com). Although currently on hold due to Covid-19, I volunteer twice a week with my Australian Shepherd dogs in the Pet Therapy program at White Plains Hospital. I founded and chair the Downtown Revitalization Committee of the Scarsdale Forum, a civic nonprofit organization. I also volunteer at the Pace Women’s Justice Center, assisting in obtaining emergency orders of protection for victims of domestic violence and elder abuse.
Sharon Forman was raised in Norfolk, Virginia and was ordained as a reform rabbi in 1994. She works in the field of Jewish education, and has served as a bar and bat mitzvah teacher at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY for the last 16 years. She is the author of Honest Answers to Your Child’s Jewish Questions and The Baseball Haggadah: A Festival of Freedom and Springtime in 15 Innings. Her essays on topics ranging from motherhood, Judaism, and her energetic dog have appeared in online journals including Literary Mama, Mamalode, Mothers Always Write, Grown and Flown, The Bitter Southerner, Kveller, Parent.co/Motherly, Moment Magazine, Lilith, Read650, Better After 50, the Manifest-Station, ReformJudaism.org.. Her short stories have appeared in Spider Magazine, JewishFiction.net, and the Write Launch. She resides in Edgemont with her husband and three children. When not driving her son to baseball games or practice, consulting on new prayerbooks for children, you might find Sharon listening and singing along to diverse genres of music, walking her dog, baking banana nutella muffins, writing a chapter of her unfinished novel, or penning impassioned letters to the editor of The New York Times.
JANET GARBER is the author of the award-winning satiric novel, Dream Job, Wacky Adventures of an HR Manager. Her essays, stories and poems have been widely published in Working Mother Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Raven's Perch, Forge Literary Magazine, Tigershark Publishing and elsewhere. When she's not writing, Janet is hiking with her husband or teaching her two rescue cats how to play. She welcomes visitors to https://www.janetgarber.com.
Lucy Iscaro was always writing but not until she found the Scarsdale Public Library’s Writer’s Center Workshop had she felt confident enough to start sending her work out into the world for possible publication. She credits the patient, talented, and insightful Barbara Josselsohn as well as her workshop peers for her growth as a writer. Her poetry and essays have since appeared in print in The New York Times, Good Old Days Magazine, Reflections, Pause and Reflect, and Word Fountain. Other essays and poetry can be found in the digital publications of The New York Times Opinion, Poeticamagazine, boomercafe.com, Eat, Darling, Eat, and Motherwell. She’s presented essays on stage, on youtube, and in podcasts with Read650.com. Lucy lives in White Plains with her supportive and encouraging husband Jim.
Gillian Lynn Katz was born in South Africa and immigrated to the United States as a teenager in the 1960s. She grew up in the apartheid era and has written and published extensively on this subject. She recently published her poetry book Portrait, with Kelsay Books. She also published a chapbook, Kaleidoscope with Finishing Line Press. Ms. Katz won Second Place in the micro-fiction contest in Italics Mine in 2021. She also won Second Place in the Greenburgh Poetry Contest in 2012 and has been published in Inkwell, Westchester Review, Epiphany, Italics Mine, and other journals and in anthologies: Magnum Opus 2019, Austin International Poetry Festival 2017, Best Emerging Poets 2017, Across the Long Bridge 2006. She has a Master of Arts in Writing from Manhattanville College and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from Purchase College. She has taught creative writing and poetry to teenagers at the Scarsdale JCC in their Summer Arts Writing Program. Ms. Katz is currently working on a novel about her experience of culture shock in combining American and South African culture into her psyche as a teenager.
Jennifer Manocherian is working on her first novel. She is a screenwriter - “Family Blues” streaming on Amazon Video, with another film in preproduction - and teaches intro screenwriting at SLWI as well as privately. She wrote the book of a musical, Marry Harry, which was filmed for streaming online at www.streamingmusicals.com. The same team wrote a short musical, Cockroaches & Cologne, also streaming online. She has been a theatre producer for over thirty years
Ellen Shapiro is a private investigator and the president of EHS Research Services for the past twenty-five years.Her first book, Looking for Laura, a Tracey Marks Mystery, was launched in January of 2020. Since then she has written two more novels of the Tracey Marks Mystery series, Secrets Can Kill and Missing or Dead.Acting on her passion for writing, Ellen enrolled in the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute where she took courses in Creative Writing. Her professional expertise in locating people led her to create the storyline and develop the characters for her novels.She has written articles related to her field for both local and nationwide newspapers, and is a member of Mystery Writers of America.When Ellen is not working or writing, she is enjoying her second passion, golf. Ellen resides in Scarsdale and has one daughter, Carrie.
Linda Shapiro attended Boston University, The New School and received a B.A. from the College of New Rochelle. She studied modern dance at the Martha Graham School in New York City and taught modern dance while raising her daughters. Linda eventually had a business career in the outdoor industry and travelled abroad as an importer, writing- always writing- wherever she traveled. Linda takes writing classes at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College and writes with The Scarsdale Library writers.Her short story, “At the Beach,” was published by ForthMagazine.com. She was honored to read “Chicken Soup for Howie,” at Read 650 Stonewall + 50. Several of Linda’s essays were published on Medium.
Judy Abelove Shemtob is a retired Scarsdale Schools teacher with an M.Ed in Reading/Language. She is a long-time member of the Scarsdale Writers Center and student at Sarah Lawrence College’s Writing Institute. Judy’s writing has appeared in various publications and online magazines. She writes contemporary middle grade and adult historical novels, essays, memoir, and picture books and enjoys falling down rabbit holes to research new topics. Judy lives in Scarsdale and belongs to several critique groups. Her piece on Lilacs was inspired by bushes, shrubs, and people that she has cultivated, appreciated, and made part of her life
You will receive an email with the Zoom link approximately 1 hour before the beginning of the class.