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RockWay Press ® If Maxwell Perkins were alive, he'd want to work here.™ |
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About RockWay's
Founder
\ First
novel: The Kommandant's Mistress
Years later, after doing geneological research on her family, Szeman learned that her great-grandparents, named Hirsch, were, indeed, Jewish, and had emigrated from Germany to escape the growing anti-Semitism. Unfortunately, to protect the family from anti-Semitism in this country, Szeman's great-grandparents told no one that they were Jewish — not even their own children. So, though Szeman grew up in a family which spoke Yiddish and performed many Jewish rituals, and despite the fact that Szeman continually asked if the family was Jewish, she was constantly told that the Yiddish expressions "were just German" and that she shouldn't tell anyone that the family was Jewish "because [they weren't] and had converted to Catholicism." ("Converted from what?" Szeman often asked, but was told not to "worry about it.") Szeman believes she was destined to write her first novel on the Holocaust, not only because of her own lost heritage and denied ethnicity, but to honor the tremendous pain it must have caused her great-grandparents to deny their origins, and in memory of all the Hirsch family members in Europe who perished in the concentration camps. \
For several years, Patrick Stewart, classically trained Shakespearean and stage actor best known for his signature roles of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Menfilm trilogy, held the option on Szeman's novel The Kommandant's Mistress. Stewart planned to produce and star as the Kommandant, Max von Walther. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get books made into films, even independent or cable films, and the film version of Szeman's novel went the way of over 99% of books which get optioned for film: a lot of work, a lot of hope, lots of rejections & disappointments, more work, more hope, big disappointment when the option expires and the actor (director/producer, etc) releases the work. Though Szeman is disappointed that the talented and highly intuitive Patrick Stewart will not be playing Max in The Kommandant's Mistress, she knows he will continue to have a fine and distinguished acting career, both in films and theatre, and wishes him the best of luck and good fortune in his professional and personal life.
\ Szeman has always been fascinated by how the mind and memory work, and after several years as a caregiver for a boyfriend with a dementia, she became interested in how much of our personality is invested in our own memories. She began learning more about Alzheimer's and care-giving, as well as about assisted suicide, so she could write her second novel, Only with the Heart , which is on the recommended reading lists of Alzheimer's groups all across the United States. \
\ Szeman's first two novels, The Kommandant's Mistress and Only with the Heart, as well as her first creative writing book, Mastering Point of View are still available. Her poetry collections, Love in the Time of Dinosaurs and Where Lightning Strikes: Poems of the Holocaust, are being published by UKA Press (England) and will be available in bookstores throughout the UK, Canada, and the US sometime in late 2010. Her collection of short stories, Naked, With Glasses, won the UKA Press' annual competition 2007 and should be available for purchase late in 2010. Her third novel (about three cousins who decide to hunt down a serial killer themselves, only to suspect that one of them may be the very killer they seek), No Feet in Heaven, is currently under consideration for publication, as is her powerful memoir, M is for Munchausers, about growing up with a mother who practiced Munchausen's Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP) — where the mother continually abuses, tortures, attempts to kill, and sometimes kills attention so that she can get attention, love, respect, sympathy, etc for herself. Her fourth novel, Messiah, is in its final stages of revision and ready to go to the agent and publisher. An internationally famous actor has already agreed to read the novel to consider optioning it for a film in which he would play the role of Jesus. \ You can see the complete list of Alexandria Szeman's book publications (and covers) at alexandriaszeman.com. There, you will be able to access excerpts, reviews, and discussion questions of her work. You will also be able to sign up for Online Book Club Discussion Groups for any of her books.
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