Ruth Tenzer Feldman
About Me
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Here are the essentials:
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Here is the longer version:
I grew up in Long Branch, New Jersey, about the same time that poet Robert Pinsky and cartoonist and author Mark Alan Stamaty did. One summer when I was little, I had a whopping case of whooping cough. My mother let me play for hours on an isolated beach. I thought that the ocean made me well, and I still sit by the ocean every chance I get.
I earned my first money as a writer when I was a Long Branch High School correspondent to the Asbury Park Press. They paid me 10 cents per column inch — big money back in 1964! Thirty years later, I really got serious about writing. By then I was a legislative attorney at the U.S. Department of Education, drafting bills to send to Congress on behalf of the president. In the meantime, I had:
Along the way I also wrote and edited a variety of brochures and newsletters, for which I earned more than a dime an inch! Eventually I fell under the spell of the Pacific Northwest. Michael and I moved to Portland, Oregon, with Her Royal Furriness, Guinevere the Pooch (1999-2013), a Corgi mix who walked me several times daily. I now live in Oakland, California, where I watch the sun set over the Golden Gate, Mount Tamalpais, and the San Francisco skyline. My grandchildren call me “Nana.” That’s what I called my Polish grandmother who made soup out of chicken feet and told me folk tales from Eastern Europe. I used to make up quite a few of my own stories then and played with imaginary friends. Now I call them characters.
I grew up in Long Branch, New Jersey, about the same time that poet Robert Pinsky and cartoonist and author Mark Alan Stamaty did. One summer when I was little, I had a whopping case of whooping cough. My mother let me play for hours on an isolated beach. I thought that the ocean made me well, and I still sit by the ocean every chance I get.
I earned my first money as a writer when I was a Long Branch High School correspondent to the Asbury Park Press. They paid me 10 cents per column inch — big money back in 1964! Thirty years later, I really got serious about writing. By then I was a legislative attorney at the U.S. Department of Education, drafting bills to send to Congress on behalf of the president. In the meantime, I had:
- studied international relations in college and graduated from law school;
- married Michael Feldman (not the guy from the radio show);
- wrote a song parody that was aired on National Public Radio (contact me and I’ll send you the lyrics);
- lived for a year in Bologna, Italy, then another year in Leiden, The Netherlands; and
- settled down in Bethesda, Maryland, to raise two sons who have children of their own.
Along the way I also wrote and edited a variety of brochures and newsletters, for which I earned more than a dime an inch! Eventually I fell under the spell of the Pacific Northwest. Michael and I moved to Portland, Oregon, with Her Royal Furriness, Guinevere the Pooch (1999-2013), a Corgi mix who walked me several times daily. I now live in Oakland, California, where I watch the sun set over the Golden Gate, Mount Tamalpais, and the San Francisco skyline. My grandchildren call me “Nana.” That’s what I called my Polish grandmother who made soup out of chicken feet and told me folk tales from Eastern Europe. I used to make up quite a few of my own stories then and played with imaginary friends. Now I call them characters.
© 2023 Ruth Tenzer Feldman