I grew up in Coney Island, Brooklyn New York, not far from the amusement park area. My childhood was an illogical mixture of wonderfully happy times spent almost every weekend at the park and the boardwalk and of far too many days spent disgorging gut wrenching tears.

Warm and fond memories abound of my mom and dad holding my hand, my big brother at my side, as we strolled the parks, brightly painted kiddie rides on one side and the colossal roller coaster on the other. The irresistible scent of hot dogs, french fries, and potato knishes filled the air.

All this joy aside, I endured deep-down soul wrenching pain from learning early on of life's harsh realities.

My father was a holocaust survivor. Some survivors buried their stories so deep because the pain was too difficult to bear bringing up anguished memories. My father shared his story, to a point, freely.

Holocaust survivors suffered greatly beyond what someone who was so removed from this could understand. But their future children and grandchildren would also experience many of the mental and emotional aftereffects.

My father spent his entire life trying to get his story out to the world and when he died, that became my main focus in life and I knew I would never find peace unless I finished what he spent the remaining years of his life trying to do.

I remember sitting in front of my computer, this task looming large before me, in agony. Not able to start, I turned in for the night. About 1 or 2 am, half-awake, I began to write my book... not with computer or pen, but in my thoughts. I jumped out of bed, ran to my computer, and the first few words of Why My Father Ran began to appear on my computer screen.

I was around ten years old and had a school assignment for English class. I wrote this short story which received an A+ for its inventive and gripping storyline. Unfortunately, I lost the story but remember it pretty well. It was a happy tale which turned bad. It was about a close-knit family waiting for their father/husband to retire and it was that very day that my story unfolded. This man was coming home to celebrate his retirement with his family... he never made it home. Now, I see the parallel - but at ten years old, I did not understand that I was writing this about my dad.

However, encouraged by my teacher's enthusiasm, I continued writing short stories, many are happy childhood tales with a moral and a few are now in my book Side By Side.

My greatest joy of writing is being able to share a part of me with the world. In this way, I feel that I have a purpose to take up a spot on this great planet. If I can help someone else, I have earned a little bit of my space here on Earth. People today are so lost and many are lonely, sad, cannot deal with all of life's harsh challenges and it helps to hear that someone else is experiencing or has endured something similar. You are not alone. I get tremendous joy deep down in my soul when someone tells me how something I said has helped them.

I love my fans! Fans are your readers of your books. For my father's story, this means that my fans are helping me accomplish my mission for my dad - getting his story out to the world! Every fan is helping my father and if my father were here today, he would personally gush over you and hug you, and probably cry from knowing that people care.

Not sure yet... I am toying with the idea of telling my life story... things I deliberately omitted from my part in Why My Father Ran. My story has yet another side. That side too is filled with much anguish and many lessons learned from those experiences. I was a victim of harsh bullying and not from one but from many cliques in my elementary and intermediate schools.

Bullying is a huge topic today and sadly still a war to be fought and won.

Maybe I can help someone to share with them how you can come out a better person from having experienced this.

I write from my heart. When the time is right and I just feel it, words just seem to flow.