Leora Skolkin Smith
Ms. Skolkin-Smith was born in Manhattan in 1952, and spent her childhood between Pound Ridge, New York, and Israel. She earned her BA and MFA and was awarded a teaching fellowship for graduate work, all at Sarah Lawrence. Her first published novel, EDGES was edited and published by the late Grace Paley for Ms. Paley's own imprint at Glad Day books. EDGES was nominated for the 2006 PEN/Faulkner Award by Grace Paley. Recently, her work has been chosen by Princeton University and the Department of the Humanities for their series: "Fertile Crescent Moon: Stories from the Middle East Diaspora." Her 2012 novel, HYSTERA was the winner of the 2012 Global E-Books Award and the 2012 USA Book Awards. Hystera is published by Fiction Studio Books. It was a Finalist in Literary Fiction in the 2012 International Book Awards, and the National Indie Excellence Awards. Solkin-Smith was panelist at MAINE READS, The Haitian Cultural International Book Festival, The Miami International Book Fair, The Virginia Festival of the Book, and The National Women's Association. She was a contributing editor to readysteadbook.com and her critical essays have been published in The Washington Post, The National Book Critic's Circle's Critical Mass, Conversational Reading, the Quarterly Review, and elsewhere.
Twitter: @leoraskolkinsmi
Facebook: leora.skolkinsmith.50
Is there a work of art that you love. Why? Have you ever visited it in person?
I’m very taken by Van Gogh. There was one year when I visited the museum to see his work so many times I can’t count them all, I am less involved with his work now but he influenced my writing profoundly. Mostly, the intensity and seriousness of the work moved me and I’ve taken on emotional themes that he painted with such seriousness and genius. “The Starry Night” is especially the painting I responded to profoundly. He taught me that deep feelings of sadness can be expressed as beauty.
Favorite non-reading activity?
I am an avid movie goer and appreciator. I was an actress before I was a writer. I have always been fascinated by film.
What do you worry about?
I’m afraid I’m always worried about money, My husband is a psychiatrist so we both picked professions that don’t make much money and its seems a serious worry most of the time as inflation goes up and up.
What brings you great joy?
I really love films and paintings. Van Gogh as I mentioned and I keep up with most of the current cinema. My father was an entertainment lawyer and he represented Marlon Brando, Samuel Beckett and Frederico Fellini and so very early I had a deep attachment to film and actors. I was fascinated by my father’s clients. He also represented Carol Channing, but I am less enthusiastic about musicals and Broadway. My greatest brag is to say that my father was the one who went to Italy to represent Fellini and he came back with a description of the director as a wild and wonderful man who was VERY into women. I also have Brando stories (Marlon Brando once threw my father’s briefcase across the street and said to him: “fetch lawyer-boy" and once my father had to get Samuel Beckett to leave his attic somewhere in Ireland and appear in person. All this that my father did and the artists he represented form a great part of my artistic beginnings, thoughts and feelings about great artists and great art and daring to try to make it.
What piece of clothing tells the most interesting story about your life?
My blue jeans. I come from a very fancy Westchester town and had to dress up for high school every day with a real dress. My mother was fanatic about dresses, hair, and make-up and my sister was a buyer for Henri Bendel’s. So my bluejeans tell the story of my reach for personhood and how I detached from my Westchester upbringing, which was strict and restrictive. My favorite outfit is old blue jeans and a baggy sweater, no make-up.
