Uvi Poznansky

Biography

Uvi Poznansky is a California-based author, poet and artist. Her writing and her art are tightly coupled. “I paint with my pen,” she says, “and write with my paintbrush.”

She earned her B. A. in Architecture and Town Planning from the Technion in Haifa, Israel. During her studies and in the years immediately following her graduation, she practiced with an innovative Architectural firm, taking part in the design of a large-scale project, Home for the Soldier.

At the age of 25 Uvi moved to Troy, N.Y. with her husband and two children. Before long, she received a Fellowship grant and a Teaching Assistantship from the Architecture department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she guided teams in a variety of design projects; and where she earned her M.A. in Architecture. Then, taking a sharp turn in her education, she earned her M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.

During the years she spent in advancing her career—first as an architect, and later as a software engineer, software team leader, software manager and a software consultant (with an emphasis on user interface for medical instruments devices)—she wrote and painted constantly. In addition, she taught art appreciation classes.

Her versatile body of work can be seen on her website, which includes poems, short stories, bronze and ceramic sculptures, paper engineering projects, oil and watercolor paintings, charcoal, pen and pencil drawings, and mixed media. In addition, she posts her thoughts about the creative process on her blog, and engages readers and writers in conversation on her Goodreads group, The Creative Spark.

Uvi published a poetry book in collaboration with her father, Zeev Kachel. Later she published two children’s books, Jess and Wiggle and Now I Am Paper, which she illustrated, and for which she created animations. You can find these animations on her Amazon author page, and her Goodreads author page.

Apart From Love is an intimate peek into the life of a strange family: Natasha, the accomplished pianist, has been stricken with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Her ex-husband Lenny has never told their son Ben, who left home ten years ago, about her situation. At the same time he, Lenny, has been carrying on a love affair with a young redhead, who bears a striking physical resemblance to his wife—but unlike her, is uneducated, direct and unrefined. This is how things stand at this moment, the moment of Ben’s return to his childhood home.

Home, her deeply moving poetry book in tribute of her father, includes her poetry and prose, as well as translated poems from the pen of her father, the poet and author Zeev Kachel.

A Favorite Son, her novella, is a new-age twist on an old yarn. It is inspired by the biblical story of Jacob and his mother Rebecca, plotting together against the elderly father Isaac, who is lying on his deathbed. This is no old fairy tale. Its power is here and now, in each one of us.

Twisted is a unique collection of tales. In it, the author brings together diverse tales, laden with shades of mystery. Here, you will come into a dark, strange world, a hyper-reality where nearly everything is firmly rooted in the familiar—except for some quirky detail that twists the yarn, and takes it for a spin in an unexpected direction.

Rise to Power, A Peek at Bathsheba, and The Edge of Revolt are volume I, II, and III of The David Chronicles, telling the story of David as you have never heard it before: from the king himself, telling the unofficial version, the one he never allowed his court scribes to recount. In his mind, history is written to praise the victorious—but at the last stretch of his illustrious life, he feels an irresistible urge to tell the truth.

With the exception of her newest release, these books are available in all three editions (audio, print and ebook.)

Smashwords Interview

How do you approach cover design?
I am an artist, poet and writer, so my art and my writing are two aspects of the same vision of the world I am creating. I write with my paintbrush and paint with my pen. 

So I design my own bookcovers, based on my art. A few months ago, a pile of bones captured my fascination. Scattered across my desk, they were ashen, rather small, and of fanciful shapes. I was unable to identify the animals whose remains these were, nor could I name their skeletal parts. Which left me free to mine—out of these crumbling, fragile relics—an entirely new presence. Coming to life on brown paper with with a few stokes of white, red, and brown pencils, there she was: my Bone Princess. 

Set upon a patch of scorching desert sand, she casts a one-eyed look at you, which masks how vulnerable she really is. Her soft flesh is shielded—and in places, nearly crushed—by her armor of bones. She is damaged: no arms, no legs, yet she accepts her pain with pride, and with regal grace. Inside and out, she carries a sense of morbidity. 

As all creations, she became an independent spirit. As such, she made me wonder what had happened to her. I imagined her turning to me, with the elegant, elongated lines of her neck, to tell me her story. This was how my novella, the first story in my book Twisted—I Am What I Am—came to be. 

Twisted.
What are your five favorite books, and why?
Surprisingly, I find poetry to be the greatest influence on my writing: I appreciate the nuances, the overloading of words, and the musical rhythms used in the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, the sonnets by Shakespeare, and the lyrical descriptions of Virginia Wolfe, to name but a few.

I love American authors as well as authors from around the world, for example The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, and Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, for their expressive use of ‘stream of consciousness’.

Playwrights have a great impact on my writing., for example The Price by Arthur Miller, because they teach me to listen to dialog, and identify emotions and motives through the speech patterns of the characters.
Read more of this interview.

Where to find Uvi Poznansky online

Books

Virtually Yummy
Price: Free! Words: 13,710. Language: English. Published: May 12, 2020 . Categories: Nonfiction » Cooking, Food, Wine, Spirits » American / General, Nonfiction » Cooking, Food, Wine, Spirits » General cookbooks
The recipes in this book come from different sources: some of them are family recipes, some were garnered from our travels around the world, and others—inspired by our research, which enables us to write about the adventures of our characters and their culinary feats. But no matter where these recipes come from, we find them not only delicious but also inspiring. We hope you will too.
בית
Price: $0.99 USD. Words: 10,960. Language: English. Published: November 11, 2017 . Categories: Poetry » Biography, Poetry » Russian & Former Soviet Union
בית. מילה פשוטה. מילה בעלת משמעויות מורכבות. מילה של לחש, מילה של זעקה. מילה של געגועים למקום מושלם, מקום שלעולם לא נמצאנו שוב. ספר זה מכיל קובץ של שירים בשפת המקור, מפרי עטו של המשורר, הסופר והאמן זאב כחל. השירים נכתבו בערוב ימיו ונתגלו על ידי בתו, אובי פוזננסקי, בזמן השבעה. שש שנים מאוחר יותר, היא תרגמה את הקובץ לאנגלית ופרסמה אותו, יחד עם מבחר משיריה: Home
Book Bites: The Wrong Girl
Price: Free! Words: 12,260. Language: English. Published: January 15, 2017 . Categories: Fiction » Romance » Historical » General, Fiction » Romance » Short stories
The Wrong Girl offers samples from books in the Still Life with Memories series. These samples give a taste not of Natasha (the girl Lenny loves) but rather of another woman, Lana. Flirtatious enough to stir suspicion, she upsets the course of his life time and again.
Book Bites: Love in Times of War
Price: Free! Words: 24,570. Language: English. Published: November 14, 2016 . Categories: Fiction » Romance » Historical » General, Fiction » Romance » Suspense
Book Bites offers samples from 9 romance novels and novellas. We hope you will find them not only delicious but also arousing an irresistible craving for more.
Twisted
Price: Free! Words: 17,970. Language: English. Published: February 26, 2015 . Categories: Fiction » Horror » Ghost, Fiction » Fantasy » Short stories
(5.00 from 3 reviews)
Come into a dark, strange world, where everything is firmly rooted in the familiar—except for some quirky detail that twists the yarn, and takes it for a spin in an unexpected direction. So prepare yourself: keep the lights on.
Home
Price: Free! Words: 22,190. Language: English. Published: January 23, 2015 . Categories: Poetry » Biography, Fiction » Anthologies » Poetry - multi-author
(5.00 from 2 reviews)
Home. A simple word; a loaded one. You can say it in a whisper; you can say it in a cry. Expressed in the voices of father and daughter, you can hear a visceral longing, in poems and prose, for an ideal place. A place never to be found again.

Smashwords book reviews by Uvi Poznansky

  • Gladstone on Nov. 04, 2013

    For someone humble enough to say that he does not consider himself an author, I was truly moved by John Miller's writing, which is natural, fast paced, and cinematic. The dialog flows, the characters are well fleshed out, the scenery is vividly painted, and I enjoyed the attention to detail in describing the journey, all of which is greatly informed by the author's unique experience as a truck driver. There is a firm sense of place, as evident by the name: Gladstone is the name of a seemingly nice, quiet little town, that presents the riddle for the main character, Jack Saunders. He arrives there by accident, when he takes the wrong turn. I don't wish to give out spoilers here, but the story leaves a trail of clues, a bit here, a bit there at every twist and turn thereafter, pointing you in the right direction towards the solution of the riddle. Will you get there first, or will the end surprise you? Five stars.
  • Gladstone 2,Missing in Denver on Nov. 30, 2013

    The mystery of this city continues to unravel in this book, and so do secrets and fears from Susan’s past. The story, the second one in the trilogy, picks up soon after the end of the first one, thus creating a timeline for the adventures of our protagonist, Jack. And wow, what a brilliant, action-filled opening, with bullets flying all around Jack’s head, as he watches Sheriff Reeves slumped over the wagon, and Susan as she tries to fight off John Smith’s men all by herself. Boy! are you in for some action here, and for an entertaining ride. Suspense oozes out of Jon Millers pen, he has a natural yet cinematic way of telling a story, with great dialogue as well as descriptions of the backdrop. Setting up the love relationship between Jack and Susan allows him, in the end, to seal the suspense with a kiss. Five stars.
  • Peter - The World (Peter: A Darkened Fairytale): Short Poems & Tiny Thoughts - Vol 1 on March 22, 2015

    The poems in PETER — THE WORLD ~ Short Poems & Tiny Thoughts" are written with a feather-like touch. The author, William O’Brien, conjures up a magical world in which his protagonist, Peter (of A Darkened Fairytale), lives. This is a complex world, made of both light and darkness, where sweet fairies may be ‘hiding in your garden, tucked behind violet flowers,’ but where all is not as it seems, as these fairies just may be vampire fairies. And so, vacillating between hope and fear, you experience this world with heightened emotions. Here is the invitation whispered in your ear: Magical book Has opened wide Mysteries kept Concealed inside Walking with them Smell and touch Pages of gold Edged with luck Highly recommended. Five stars.