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Amy Bloom
(1953 - living) U.S.A.

Amy Bloom

Novelist

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The Blooms lived in the Baker Hill neighborhood of Great Neck before moving up, when Amy was 7, to Kings Point. It took a while for her to catch on to the subtle gradations of status. "What kind of car does your father drive?" the Kings Point kids asked. Gray, she would reply. "I didn't get it. When I later said 'Oldsmobile,' it still wasn't the right answer."

An affinity for writing and reading ran in the Bloom family. Her father, Murray, was a freelance journalist and writer. Amy's mother, Sydelle, wrote a gossip column that aired on radio and TV. Also explaining a lot was a coming-of-age simultaneous with the tumultuous Sixties. At Great Neck North High, Bloom was one of the editors of an underground paper called The Rat.

At one time, she and her fellow revolutionaries were handing out the paper on the front steps of the school. When the principal approached, she feared she was about to be expelled. Instead, he merely requested that she distribute her wares somewhere else. An ardent foe of the Vietnam War, Bloom helped organize a protest among area high schools.

She began her career with an undergraduate degree in theater and political science and went on to work as an actor. After parts in several productions, she came to the conclusion she didn't have a future as an actor or director.

Writer Amy Bloom's stories have been anthologized in numerous collections. She is the author of the National Book Award nominated short-story collection, Come to Me (which includes her highly celebrated story, "Love is Not A Pie"), the novel Love Invents Us and her most recent story collection, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You.

When she married and had her children, she decided to attend graduate school and obtain a social work degree. That led to clinical work as a therapist for ten years, until she found herself drawn to writing. Now, she continues to maintain a tiny counseling practice (about four hours a week) and spends the rest of her work hours writing.

Now living outside Middletown, Conn., she is winding down her psychotherapeutic practice to devote herself to writing full time.

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