Leora Skolkin-Smith, Author

Leora Skolkin-Smith was born in Manhattan in 1952, and spent her childhood between Pound Ridge, New York, and Israel, traveling with her family to her mother's birthplace in Jerusalem every three years. 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. Excerpts from Leora's first novel, HYSTERA, were published by Persea Books and The Sarah Lawrence Review. Leora has received grants from The New York State Council on the Arts, The Department of Cultural affairs, The Robert Gage Foundation, Patricia Kind Foundation, The Millay Colony for the Arts, The Vermont Studio Center, and Art-Without-Walls.EDGES was nominated for the 2006 PEN/​Faulkner Award and The PEN/​Ernest Hemingway Award by Grace Paley. Awarded a Stipend from the Pen/​Faulkner Foundation, EDGES was also a National Women Studies Association Conference Selection, a Bloomsbury Review Pick, 2006: “Favorite Books of the Last 25 Years” and a Jewish Book Council Selection, 2005. Leora was recently a panelist, on "Israel in Fiction" at the The Miami International Book Fair, 2006, and a Panelist, on "War in Writing" , at the Virginia Festival of the Book, 2006. She is currently a contributing editor to readysteadybook.com. and her critical essays have been published in The Washington Post, The National Book Critic's Circle's Critical Mass, and other places. A critical essay on the work of Clarice Lispector is forthcoming this fall, published on The Conversational Quarterly. Excerpts from her latest novel-in-progress have recently appeared in Cantaraville Three. EDGES won the 2008 EARPHONES AWARD for an original audio production narrated by Tovah Feldshuh and is currently in development Feature Film, produced by Triboro Pictures.