In 1992 an imprint of a major publishing house brought out my Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION written with Rabbi Karen Fox.

Some time later I unsuccessfully struggled for years to get a traditional publisher interested in my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT.

Then as I approached my 60th birthday I decided I couldn’t wait any longer for a publisher to say yes to me. I went the self-publishing route with Amazon’s print-on-demand unit BookSurge.

And right then MRS. LIEUTENANT was selected as a 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semi-finalist, which did encourage me that I was on the right track.

I felt so strongly about this book because it is based on my own experiences as a new Mrs. Lieutenant in the spring of 1970 during the Vietnam War. I wanted to share with people who do not have a close connection with the military a story about that special community.

And, yes, there are many parallels between the U.S. today and the U.S. in 1970.