"This sprawling, warm-hearted story spans six continents and one hundred years, from the 1900 Sabbath table of Reizl and Lazar Solomon and their young sons, in Radautz, Bukovina, to a glorious millennial reunion in Paris. "Dawid presents the family history in twenty-four accounts of varying length, rich in personal vignettes though mindful of the overriding historical arc. Here is Hans, a grandson of Reizl and Lazar, 'resident alien' of Tientsin, North China,1939; Berthold, another grandson, on day 555 of his imprisonment in a Communist prison cell, 1950; great-granddaughters Toni and Marguerite, 'les Belles Jumelles,' internationally acclaimed Belgian duo-pianists, 1990s. "The final story, set in Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, is an amazing set piece. From far-flung corners of the world, e.g., Dakar, Liverpool, Haifa, San Francisco, Saigon, Moscow, Capetown, Rio, Brussels, Dublin, New York, the descendants of Reizl and Lazar -- gay, straight, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-racial, multi-talented -- assemble in boisterous celebration of the ninety-second birthday of Freda, granddaughter of Reizl and Lazar, oldest surviving member of the family, and the birth of the new millennium." Jewish Book World, Winter 2009
Annie Dawid lives and writes and teaches and makes art in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of South-Central Colorado. She has published dozens of prize-winning short stories and runs a writer-artist retreat, BloomsburyWest, open to all, during the summer and fall months in Silver Cliff, Colorado. Online and through the mail, Annie edits prose manuscripts of all kinds (see her website) and teaches workshops and classes in fiction writing, most recently at the Taos Summer Writers Conference in New Mexico, Summer 2010. For 16 years, she taught literature and writing at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where she ran the creative writing program for undergraduates. Annie has taught and given readings all over the country, at Purdue, Eastern Kentucky University, Mercyhurst College, Colorado Springs School, as well as in other parts of the globe -- at the Southern Australia Writers Center in Adelaide.
In addition to her three published volumes of fiction, her work has been anthologized in various collections, including works devoted to the literature of the Holocaust, of therapy, of alcohol, and, most recently, GROWING UP GIRL. She teaches AP English at the local high school, makes crafts and shows her artwork, including assemblages and photography, at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Gallery.
She lives with her son and two dogs in an off-the-grid cabin at 9100 feet in the Wet Mountain Valley.
