Although I mainly write fiction, I also write memoir and creative nonfiction pieces that explore family relationships and friendship. While these are primarily written for self-reflection and a deeper understanding of others, I occasionally submit them for publication.
Why writers write: “To share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.” – George Orwell
Title: Riley and Lucille
Publication: The Blue Mountain Review (May 2023, Issue 28) (pp 155-158), published by The Southern Collective Experience
Log line: Written on the eve of surgery to save my right eye, “Riley and Lucille” ponders how my habit of naming ailing body parts is a tool to confront, communicate, laugh about, and adapt to the physical challenges of aging.
Journal: The Blue Mountain Review, published by The Southern Collective Experience
Title: Weatherproof Halloween
Publication: Back in THE BRONX, Summer 2021, Volume 100, Issue 113
Log line: “Weatherproof Halloween” is about Trick or Treating in my Bronx apartment building in the 1950s, where we children were protected from more than the vicissitudes of the weather.
Journal: Back in THE BRONX
Reservoir Oval, The Bronx, circa 1953 (I’m bottom, left, wearing pedal pushers and saddle shoes)
Title: Bear Watch
Publication: The Blue Nib, December 02, 2020
Log line: “Bear Watch” describes how my first encounter with antisemitism, on a cross-country camping trip to Yellowstone at age fourteen, taught me the true meaning of adventure.
Journal: The Blue Nib
Title: My Name Could Be Toby Gardner
Publication: bioStories, February 2020
Log line: “My Name Could Be Toby Gardner” is a seriocomic lament about the loss of my name in a family whose pathology included the obfuscation of their real names.
Journal: bioStories
Gussie, Cal, Steve, and Toby, a.k.a. Kate, David, Joel, and Ann
Word portraits of the people surrounding us in our daily lives
Title: David’s Crossing (Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in creative nonfiction)
Publication: Ponder Review, Spring 2019, Volume 3, Issue 1
Log line: “David’s Crossing” captures my father’s uncertainty as a young boy aboard an immigrant ship, the SS Rotterdam IV, journeying from a Polish shtetl to an American city during World War I — a century-old tale with resonance for today.
Journal: Ponder Review
Ponder Review, Spring 2019, Volume #, Issue 1
David Savishinsky, Polish immigrant, circa 1916
Title: Mother Dearest
Publication: 45 Magazine Women’s Literary Journal, October 04, 2018, online at https://45magazineiwa.com/2018/10/04/mother-dearest-non-fiction/
Log line: (Written by the journal editor) In “Mother Dearest,” a woman comes to terms with her mother’s troubled past.
Journal: 45 Magazine Women’s Literary Journal https://45magazineiwa.com/
