Sheila at her desk in the part of the bedroom
in her apartment that she designed as a study.

Sheila recently celebrated her 82nd birthday and is hard at work on a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. She is writing it under contract with a British publisher, with a biography of Dorothy Parker to follow. She is also working at getting her most recent two novels into print.

Sheila has published 17 books, including adult and young adult fiction and nonfiction, anthologies, and college-teaching-methods books. For her adult novel, The Little Terrorist, published in 2000, she did research in Gaza, Athens, and Masada, an Israeli national shrine, and at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Her novels for young adults have been published in many languages, and she has gone on book tours in Hungary, Ireland, what was then Czechoslovakia, and Austria. She has also published over 100 articles and book reviews.

Her most difficult and heartbreaking task in a long literary and academic career was to complete The Hollywood Writers' War, a book started by her daughter, Nancy Lynn Schwartz, who died before she could complete it. Nancy, a screenwriter and author, died in 1978 at the age of 26, of a brain tumor.

The book, published in 1982, tells of the running battles of the Screen Writers' Guild in the 1930's and into the 40's, leading up to the hearings of the House UnAmerican Affairs Activity committee and the blacklist of Hollywood writers. Nancy also did not live to see the teleplay she had written for a CBS-TV network series based on Sheila's novel for young adults, Like Mother, Like Me.

Sheila and the art for the jacket of
Like Mother, Like Me, filmed for TV

These days, when Sheila is not at work at her desk in her apartment in Manhattan, New York City, she is likely to be out and about. Once a week she goes to the Greenwich House Music School to play piano in a chamber music session coached by a professional. Other times she is out on the town, going to a concert or the theater (Broadway, off Broadway, or off off Broadway) or to the movies. This past New Year's Eve found her dancing at a party at the Rio Caliente Spa and Resort in Primavera, Mexico, where she has been conducting workshops in writing and film study for the past 11 years.

Sheila grew up and went to school in Manhattan, where her father, a lawyer, was an active Republican who ran for the state senate. He was, Sheila says, a right-wing political conservative, and she became as left-wing as possible. She went to Adelphi Academy and received her B.A. degree from Barnard College in 1946, a Master's degree from Columbia University's Teacher's College in 1948, and a Ph.D. in English education from New York University in 1964.

Sheila was married in 1950 and had three children while she was taking courses in graduate school for her Ph.D. She had help at home, and home was in Great Neck, Long Island. Her oldest, Nancy, was born in 1952. Sheila and her husband, who divorced in 1979, have another daughter and a son, both married, and two grandchildren.

After teaching at Hofstra University, on Long Island, New York, for a few years, Sheila joined the faculty of the State University of New York, New Paltz, in 1963, and eventually moved to New Paltz. She became a full professor in the early 1970's and retired in 1996 but continued to teach there part time for five more years, for a total of 40 years in all of college teaching. It wasn't until July 2007, however, that Sheila sold her house in New Paltz and moved to live full time in the one-bedroom apartment she had in Manhattan.

She managed the move by herself, and it took her six months. She planned to take little of her prized furniture with her, and her son and daughter wanted only a few pieces. Sheila solved this problem by bringing in an antique dealer to buy the furniture, and a company that would clear out her basement for free provided it could keep whatever it wanted.

Sheila has a grand piano in her living
room and is serious about playing it.

Sheila has taught a wide variety of literature and writing courses. "If you live as long as I have," Sheila says, "you teach a lot of stuff!" For Sheila that "stuff" has included the novel and the short story, travel writing, fiction and memoir writing, drama, and Southern literature. She has also taught writing at every age level - elementary school, secondary school, college, and graduate school and in programs for senior citizens.

She won a Fulbright in 1977 for teaching and research in Ireland, where she taught at the University of Cork. She has taught prisoners at the Fishkill Correctional Facility, in Beacon, New York, in a program sponsored by the State University of New York. She has also taught in the Semester at Sea program, a study abroad program then under the academic auspices of the University of Pittsburgh, and for the Writer's Digest School (the Writer's Digest is a magazine for aspiring writers), as well as for Elderhostel in programs for senior citizens.

The walls of Sheila's apartment are covered with framed ads, posters and art work pertaining to her books, and certificates, as well as pictures of her children and grandchildren. Sheila is a bit embarrassed and apologetic about so many items on her wall relating to her work, but they make for a colorful and interesting display.

From the New York State English Council, a language arts education organization, there is an Excellence in Letters Award and a Certificate of Achievement. A certificate from the Adolescent Literature Association ("ALAN") cites Sheila for distinguished leadership, scholarship and writing. Sheila was also awarded the New York State/UUP (United University Professions) Medal for all-around excellence.

A placque presented "to Sheila Schwartz" in 1997 by the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research reads,

To visit Sheila's website, click on www.sheilaschwartz.com.

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