Critically acclaimed & award-winning author, Szeman began as a poet, then began writing novels & short fiction, as well as creative writing books.
Szeman has Ph.D.'s in Creative Writing and in World Literature; her dissertation, Survivor: One Who Survives, was a collection of original poetry, all of which was accepted or published by university & literary journals before her dissertation defense. While in graduate school, her poetry was awarded numerous prizes, including The Elliston Poetry Prize (several times) & The Isabel and Mary Neff Creative Writing Fellowship.
Her first novel, The Kommandant's Mistress, on the Holocaust from multiple points of view and perspectives, was chosen as one of The New York Times Book Review's "Top 100 Books of the Year, 1993. It was also awarded the University of Rochester's prestigious Kafka Prize "for the best book of prose fiction by an American woman" (1994), and Central State University's (OH) Talmadge McKinney Research Award (1994).
Her second novel, Only with the Heart, on the devastating effects of Alzheimer's on a family, is on the recommended reading lists of Alzheimer's Associations nationwide.
The titular story in her award-winning collection of short stories, Naked, with Glasses, won Third Prize in Story Magazine's "Seven Deadly Sins Contest", and the manuscript won UKA Press' 2007 Annual International Competition (expected publication date 2012).
Her two poetry collections, Love in the Time of Dinosaurs and Where Lightning Strikes: Poems of the Holocaust, both containing award-winning poems, include poetry from her dissertation. Both are set to be published by UKA Press in 2012.
Szeman is currently completing her latest novel, revising another novel & her memoir (about growing up with a mother who practiced Munchausen's by Proxy), and is about to publish several creative writing exercise books.