Elizabeth Stolarek

medium: Author

“I’ve always been a writer. As a child, when I wasn’t reading, I was writing. When my mother would insist on my going outside “to get some fresh air,” I would wait until she wasn’t looking to sneak out the back door, hiding my book or my tablet behind my back.

I taught English for 38 years (mostly at the university level) and during that time co-authored three textbooks and a number of journal articles.  But I always wanted to be a novelist. Unfortunately, grading 80 student papers a week always got in the way.

Retirement changed that. One Amber Bead, which was published in 2011 under my pen name, Rebecca Thaddeus, was based on stories my mother-in-law told me about her years in a Nazi labor camp during WWI and her trials and successes once she emigrated to the United States. My second novel, My Mother’s Daughter, was set in early 19th Century in Natchez, Mississippi. Coming to Be takes me back to my roots by telling the story of a Polish-American woman whose friends help get her through a difficult situation.

I also co-facilitate writers’ retreats and host a monthly writers’ group in my home. Now that I am retired from teaching, I am happy to focus on writing, editing, assisting beginning writers, and helping promote my published work.”