by Linda Gartz
To the dozens of wonderful memoirists, too numerous to mention, whose books inspired me with their honesty and taught me about good and truthful writing, I am thankful.
Finally, I’m grateful to Chicago’s Newberry Library for its enthusiastic acceptance of the Gartz Family Papers as a donation to its Midwest Manuscripts Collection, where future researchers will find a history of twentieth-century life in Chicago as experienced through the lives of ordinary people who did extraordinary things.
About the Author
Author photo © Brian McConkey
Linda Gartz is an author, television documentary producer, and curator of the Gartz Family Papers, an extensive collection of letters, diaries, photos, and much more spanning the twentieth century. Born and raised on Chicago’s West Side, she studied at both Northwestern University and the University of Munich. She earned her BA and MAT degrees from Northwestern. Her documentary work has been honored with six Emmys, multiple film festival awards, and other awards. Her productions have been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and Investigation Discovery, syndicated nationwide. Go to www.LindaGartz.com to learn more. She is married and is the proud mom of two wonderful young men.
Selected Titles from She Writes Press
She Writes Press is an independent publishing company founded to serve women writers everywhere. Visit us at www.shewritespress.com.
The Outskirts of Hope: A Memoir by Jo Ivester. $16.95, 978-1-63152-964-1. A moving, inspirational memoir about how living and working in an all-black town during the height of the civil rights movement profoundly affected the author’s entire family—and how they in turn impacted the community.
The Beauty of What Remains: Family Lost, Family Found by Susan Johnson Hadler. $16.95, 978-1-63152-007-5. Susan Johnson Hadler goes on a quest to find out who the missing people in her family were—and what happened to them—and succeeds in reuniting a family shattered for four generations.
The Butterfly Groove: A Mother’s Mystery, A Daughter’s Journey by Jessica Barraco. $16.95, 978-1-63152-800-2. In an attempt to solve the mystery of her deceased mother’s life, Jessica Barraco retraces the older woman’s steps nearly forty years earlier—and finds herself along the way.
Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the ’60s & ’70s edited by Kate Farrell, Amber Lea Starfire, and Linda Joy Myers. $16.95, 978-1-938314-04-9. Forty-eight powerful stories and poems detailing the breakthrough moments experienced by women during the ’60s and ’70s.
All the Ghosts Dance Free: A Memoir by Terry Cameron Baldwin. $16.95, 978-1-63152-822-4. A poetic memoir that explores the legacy of alcoholism and teen suicide in one woman’s life—and her efforts to create an authentic existence in the face of that legacy.
Uncovered: How I Left Hassidic Life and Finally Came Home by Leah Lax. $16.95, 978-1-63152-995-5. Drawn in their offers of refuge from her troubled family and promises of eternal love, Leah Lax becomes a Hassidic Jew—but ultimately, as a fortysomething woman, comes to reject everything she has lived for three decades in order to be who she truly is.