Louise Bernikow

When I was a Fulbright scholar in Spain, I danced flamenco and studied 16th century mystic poets. As a writer and in my personal life, I’ve always bridged two worlds – popular and academic, shuttling in and out of the walls of academe. After my debut as a fledgling journalist covering ladies' teas (unsigned) for the Times of London, I returned home in the 1960’s to become part of the "action and passion" of my time.

ABEL, about Soviet spy Rudolph Abel, an investigative narrative rooted in the Cold War, was a step away from what was then considered "women's turf." It was a bestseller in several countries, editions and languages and has been newly optioned for a major motion picture, proving that good things can happen decades after a book is published.

The women’s movement, with its earth-shattering shift of focus to “the truth about women’s lives” – Muriel Rukeyser’s resonant phrase-- shifted mine. THE WORLD SPLIT OPEN adapted years of study in Columbia University’s Graduate School in English Literature to re-define the poetic canon with women at the center. AMONG WOMEN meditates on what happens when there are no men in the room. Both books became classics in the Women’s Studies curriculum, years after I was a founder of two Women’s Studies programs, the Columbia Seminar on Women and Society and the Women's Biography group at the CUNY Graduate Center.

As a magazine writer in those years, I bridged, again, different worlds: Cosmopolitan’s book reviewer, MS. Magazine, Playboy and the New York Times.

My passion for feminism, politics, and women's history never abated. THE AMERICAN WOMEN'S ALMANAC, an "irreverent" illustrated American women's history, sent me on the road as a virtual one-woman band, bringing the stirring story of pushing the proverbial envelope to campuses and communities with a lecture/​slide show called THE SHOULDERS WE STAND ON: WOMEN AS AGENTS OF CHANGE. I set a dainty size 9 foot on the online road by becoming the consulting historian and columnist bringing still-unmined stories of women’s history to the readers of WomensEnews. And now I am obsessed by New York City women, how they used the statues, the streets and the subways to organize the huge mass movement that resulted in winning the right to vote in the state in 1917.

An unexpected occurrence turned my head and my writing life in yet another direction. The appearance of a brown four-legged angel who wanted to live with me is the back-story for BARK IF YOU LOVE ME and, as the adventure continued, DREAMING IN LIBRO: HOW A GOOD DOG TAMED A BAD WOMAN. The brown boxer boy who prompted me to think about women, their dogs and animal rescue is gone, but there's a girl named Lilith wagging her tail even as you read this.

Following many years as a Creative Writing teacher inside the walls of academe, I slipped out once again to create a private practice as an editorial consultant. I’ve "ghosted" books by lovely grandes dames and brilliant men who rose to the pinnacles of their industries. I offer private, confidential, guidance and hand-holding (if needed) for authors at all levels so they can conceive, keep on and finish the books they want to publish. I am drawn to difficult, painful, outrageous over-the-top memoirs and have helped a few such books make the kind of splash I knew they would.