A Conversation With Lore Segal
– Acclaimed writer Lore Segal and children’s book author Laura Geringer Bass discuss Lore’s novels, children’s books, and translations, her life as a writer and mother, her writing practice, and upcoming projects. With Marjorie Tesser for Mom Egg Review.
Part 1
Lore Segal speaks about childhood experiences and becoming a writer, discovering her subject matter, The Juniper Tree, Gallows Songs, Her First American.
Part 2
Lore Segal reads “The Goblins” from The Juniper Tree, and “The Virus” from Gallows Songs.
Part 3
Lore Segal discusses writing and mothering, Her First American, Lucinella, writing children’s books, current projects, writing practice.
Getting It Right: Lore Segal
In Conversation with Laura Geringer Bass
Marjorie Tesser, Producer
Randy Tesser, Editor
Music “Thatched Villagers” by Kevin McLeod
Lore Segal
– When Lore Segal was ten years old, she left her native Vienna and went to England, where she lived with a number of foster families. After receiving her B.A. English Honors from the University of London in 1948, she went to live in the Dominican Republic until her American quota allowed her to come to New York in May 1951.
Between 1968 and 1996 she taught writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, Princeton, Bennington College, Sarah Lawrence, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Ohio State University from which she retired in 1996.
Lore Segal has worked as novelist, essayist, translator, and writer of children’s books. She has received the Clifton Fadiman Medal, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and a grant from the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Her reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and her stories in the The New Yorker. Her short story “The Reverse Bug” was included in Best American Short Stories, 1989 and was a 1990 O. Henry Prize-winner. Her stories “Other People’s Deaths” and “Making Good” were included in the O. Henry Prize Stories in 2008 and 2010, respectively.
Lore Segal’s novels include Other People’s Houses, first serialized in The New Yorker, Lucinella, republished in 2009 by Melville House; and Her First American, which won an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Segal’s most recent novel, Shakespeare’s Kitchen was one of three finalists for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Among Lore Segal’s children’s books are Tell Me a Mitzi, illustrated by Harriet Pincus, Tell Me a Trudy, illustrated by Rosemary Wells, All the Way Home, illustrated by James Marshall, The Story of Old Mrs. Brubeck and How She Looked for Trouble and Where She Found Him, illustrated by Marcia Sewall, The Story of Mrs. Lovewright and Purrless Her Cat, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky, Morris the Artist, illustrated by Boris Kulikov, Why Mole Shouted and Other Stories, and More Mole Stories and Little Gopher, Too both illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier.
She translated Gallows Songs with W.D. Snodgrass, from the German of Christian Morgenstern, The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm with illustrations by Maurice Sendak, The Book of Adam to Moses, and The Story of King Saul and King David.
Her latest novel, Half the Kingdom, was published by Melville House in October 2013.
Laura Geringer Bass
As publisher of the award winning imprint, Laura Geringer Books, editor, story advisor, teacher and writer, Laura Geringer Bass has collaborated with many celebrated authors and artists in the field of children’s books. She has worked with numerous publishing houses and entertainment studios including HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, Scholastic, Houghton Mifflin, Hyperion/Disney, Dreamworks, Fox, and CBS. She teaches writing workshops privately and at the JCC and is a faculty member of New York Writer’s Workshop.
Laura is the author of twenty books for children including the bestselling A Three Hat Day, an ALA Notable Book illustrated by Arnold Lobel, a Top Ten featured selection on LeVar Burton’s Reading Rainbow. Her YA fantasy, Sign Of The Qin, an ALA Best Book was shortlisted for the Printz award. Myth Men, her popular series of graphic novels was adapted by CBS as an animated TV show. Her love of story informs her service on the board of First Book, a non-profit organization that has delivered over 150 million books into the hands of children in need.
She is currently writing a new novel for children entitled The Girl With More Than One Heart.