Liz Rosenberg is an American poet, novelist, children's book author, and book reviewer. She is currently a professor of English at Binghamton University

Binghamton University

Binghamton University, also formally called State University of New York at Binghamton, , is a public research university in the State of New York. The University is one of the four university centers in the State University of New York system...

, and in previous years has taught at Colgate University

Colgate University

Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...

, Sarah Lawrence College

Sarah Lawrence College

Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...

, Hamilton College, Bennington College

Bennington College

Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...

, and Hollins College. Her children's book reviews appear monthly in The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...

.

Beginnings

Rosenberg was born on Long Island to parents Ross and Lucille Rosenberg. She grew up in Syosset, New York

Syosset, New York

Syosset is a hamlet in Nassau County, New York, in the northeastern section of Town of Oyster Bay near the North Shore of Long Island. The population was 18,829 at the 2010 census...

 with her older sister, Ellen. It was her sister Ellen who taught her to read when Liz was only two. She and her father would illustrate and write books for their youngest. Rosenberg's interest in poetry and literature started at an early age and her first poem came at eight. She wrote her first "novel" at age nine, in the fourth grade, but did not publish a novel till Heart and Soul

Heart and Soul (young adult novel)

Heart and Soul is a young adult novel by novelist and poet Liz Rosenberg....

, a Young Adult novel it took her twenty years to complete.

Her father owned a tool manufacturing company in Smithtown Long Island, which he ran with several cousins.ROSCO Tools was sold to Vermont American in the l980s. Her mother worked briefly in publishing, and then stayed home to care for her two children. Her maternal aunt, Madlyn Cates, was a well-established actress who appeared on Broadway, in TV shows and films, including the famous "concierge" bit in Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...

' original film The Producers. Madlyn's middle daughter, Katherine Kates, has continued the acting tradition, and has been featured in numerous TV shows, commercials and films, including one turn as the famous "Bobka Lady" on Seinfeld. Rosenberg's paternal uncle, Anton Rosenberg, a painter, was supposedly the model for a central character in Jack Kerouac's novel The Subterraneans and is often thought to be the "angel-headed hipster" about whom Allen Ginsberg wrote in his poem "Howl."

Education

Rosenberg graduated early from Syosset High School, where she won an NCTE Writing Award in her senior year. She met her second husband, David Bosnick, in her junior year in high school. Her first serious high school boyfriend was author Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."...

. They lived together for six months in Martha's Vineyard, then attended Bennington College together. While majoring in creative writing and literature at Bennington her first short story, "Memory," won an Atlantic First Award and was published in The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...

. After writing her senior thesis on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rosenberg graduated early from Bennington and subsequently earned her Masters in creative writing at the Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

 Writing Program. She earned her PhD in Comparative literature at Binghamton University, where she has been teaching since 1979. Accomplished writers she has taught include: Nathan Englander

Nathan Englander

Nathan Englander is a Jewish-American author born in Long Island, NY in 1970. He wrote the short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1999...

, Sheila Schwartz, Ellen Potter

Ellen Potter

Ellen Potter is an American author of both children's and adult's books . She grew up in Upper West Side, New York and studied creative writing at Binghamton University and now lives in Candor in upstate New York. She has been a contributor to Cimarron Review, Epoch, The Hudson Review, and Seventeen...

, Angie Cruz

Angie Cruz

Angie Cruz is an American novelist.Cruz was born in Washington Heights, New York City. She is of Dominican descent, and often traveled back and forth between New York City and the Dominican Republic while growing up. She is currently a professor at Texas A&M University.Cruz treats themes of home,...

, Lisa Rowe Fraustino

Lisa Rowe Fraustino

Lisa Rowe Fraustino is an American writer and editor of children's literature.- Biography :In 1961 Lisa was born in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine. She currently lives with her husband in Connecticut where she teaches at Eastern Connecticut State University....

, Kate Schmitt, Jerry Mirskin, Paul William Burch, Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Susan Campbell Bartoletti is an American writer of children's literature. She was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but eventually the family ended up in a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania. Susan started as an English teacher and inspired many students before deciding to pursue writing in...

, Jeff Ford

Jeffrey Ford

Jeffrey Ford is an American writer in the Fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including Fantasy, Science Fiction and Mystery. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humor, literary allusion, and a fascination with tales told within tales...

, Matt Moses, Josephine Schmidt, and Michael Greene. She also teaches during the summer at the Fine Arts Work Center

Fine Arts Work Center

The Fine Arts Work Center is a non-profit enterprise devoted to encouraging the growth and development of emerging visual artists and writers through residency programs, to the propagation of aesthetic values and experience, and to the restoration of the year-round vitality of the historic art...

 in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Beyond Writing

Rosenberg is a board member of The Chabad House and Beds for Kids - which provides children with a place to sleep. She is also proud to have helped found Binghamton's Indoor Playground. In the past she was in charge of Binghamton University's Local Harvest for the Homeless program.

Poetry

• The Angel Poems (1984)
• The Fire Music (1986)
• Children of Paradise (poetry)
  Children of Paradise (poetry)
  -Poems Included:Admiring The EnemyAfter The Death Of A Neighbor's ChildAll Those Hours Alone In The Dark Be The OneBecause I Was DyingThe Birthday PartyThe Black ShoeThe Blue-flowered BellCharityCollege DaysThe CrucifiedThe Dalai LamaDark Eyes...
  
  (1994)
• These Happy Eyes (2001)
• A Book of Days (2002)
• The Lily Poems (2008)
• Demon Love (2008)

Poetry Anthologies

• The Invisible Ladder (1996)
• Earth Shattering Poems (1998)
• Light Gathering Poems (2000)
• Roots and Flowers: Poets Write About Their Families (2001)
• I Just Hope It's Lethal: Poems of Sadness, Madness, and Joy (2005)

Novels

• Heart and Soul (young adult novel)
  Heart and Soul (young adult novel)
  Heart and Soul is a young adult novel by novelist and poet Liz Rosenberg....
  
  (1996)
• 17: A Novel in Prose Poems (2002)
• Home Repair (novel)
  Home Repair (novel)
  Home Repair is American poet and novelist Liz Rosenberg's first novel for adults. It is about a middle-aged woman, Eve, and how she deals with being divorced, raising a family, dating, and caring for her elderly mother....
  
  (2009)

Picture Books

• Adelaide and the Night Train (1989)
• Window, Mirror, Moon (1990)
• The Scrap Doll (1991)
• Monster Mama (1993)
• Mama Goose: A New Mother Goose (1994)
• The Carousel (1996)
• Moonbathing (1996)
• Grandmother and the Runaway Shadow (1996)
• Eli and Uncle Dawn (1997)
• A Big and Little Alphabet (1997)
• The Silence in the Mountains (1999)
• Eli's Night Light (2001)
• On Christmas Eve (2002)
• We Wanted You (2002)
• This is the Wind (2008)
• I Did it Anyway (2009)