Welcome to my website!  After over thirty years working in the educational field, I retired in 2010 and finally have pursue a long-delayed passion–writing!  Thanks to Laurie Clevenson at  (Capital Region, New York) The Jewish World, my stories have been published regularly in print and on line since 201. Many of the stories on this blog found their first home there.

A little more about me…..

I grew up in a very close knit family in a small town on Lake Champlain in Northern New York, the third child of Fran and Bill Cohen.  I completed my undergraduate work in English Education and my masters in reading at University at Albany, I spent most of my career in adult education, first in the classroom (Professor of Academics) and then in administration (Coordinator of Program Development and Research) at the Capital District Educational Opportunity Center, a division of Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York. 

My husband Larry and I met at a Jewish singles Purim party, where I was Queen Esther and Larry was King Ahasuares.  I knew after sharing one hamantashen that I had met my soulmate. After over four decades of marriage, we are proud to have raised two children who enjoy reading, learning, and traveling as much as we do. We are also forever grateful to them for finding mates whom we love and for each providing to us our special grandchildren whom we adore.

Besides spending time with my family and friends,  I love singing along to Broadway musicals, getting lost on well-marked trails in national parks, swimming in heated pools, biking on quiet streets, and eating vanilla ice cream. Since retiring and relocating from Saratoga County, New York,  to Central Florida, I am now happily writing down family stories I have composed in my head or written in my journals during my entire life. More recently, I have had the privilege of sharing accounts of ordinary people with extraordinary lives: Holocaust survivors, a World War II POW, a Titanic fanatic,  a sister who was the number one advocate for her intellectually challenged sibling, and a mother who has raised thousands of dollars in memory of her daughter, who died too young of cancer.

Along with The Jewish World, my articles have also been published in the Heritage Florida Jewish News and several websites including the Union of Reform Judaism, Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America, Growing Bolder, U.S.A. Pickleball Association, and Jewish Women of Words (Australia!).  I am the the author of two collections of my stories, There Goes My Heart (2016) and Tikkun Olam: Stories of Repairing an Unkind World. (2018). Both books available in paperback and e-book format on Amazon. My third book, Fradel’s Story, a compilation of stories by and about my mother and our family, will be published in late Summer 2021. My fourth book, tentatively named Keep Calm and Bake Challah: Surviving the Pandemic, Politics, and More of Life’s Mishegas, will be published in 2022.

I am following in the footsteps of my mother, Frances Cohen, who at the age of 88, joined a writer’s group at her independent living residence and finally wrote down her stories. In honor of my mother, this blog includes her stories as well as mine. Enjoy them, and feel free to comment on my blog or via my email at shapcomp18@me.com. I would love to hear from you! 

Warmly,

Marilyn Cohen Shapiro