Florence Reiss Kraut is a native New Yorker, raised and educated in New York City. She holds a BA in English and a Master’s in Social Work and worked for thirty years as a clinician, a family therapist, and CEO of a family service agency while writing stories and essays for publication. Florence has published personal essays for the New York Times and her fiction has appeared in journals such as The Evening Street Press, SNReview, The Westchester Review and others. She joined me on Uncorking a Story to talk about her career and latest novel, Street Corner Dreams.
Florence Reiss Kraut has always wanted to be a writer, fueled by her childhood experiences listening to natural storytellers in her family of immigrants. Florence pursued her interest in literature, obtaining a BA in English, and later balancing her writing with a successful career as a clinician, family therapist, and CEO of a family service agency over the course of thirty years. She dedicated herself to writing and learning through classes, workshops, and writing groups at places like Sarah Lawrence College, with a commitment to never give up on her writing. The writing process for her first book was extensive; Florence spent nine years developing the manuscript, rewriting it numerous times to perfect the intertwined family saga based on the rich character profiles she had created over years. Her first book draws heavily from her family background and experiences, incorporating elements that are directly influenced by her large immigrant Jewish family from Brooklyn, New York. After her retirement from her professional career, she managed to frame her myriad of stories into books, demonstrating that the journey to becoming a published author can be a long and iterative process, contrasting her ten-year endeavor with the quicker year and a half it took to write her second book, Street Corner Dreams.
Buy Street Corner Dreams
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3uWINQ4
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