Bowker Biography:
Rochelle Ratner

 

Rochelle Ratner's first volume of poetry, A Birthday of Waters, was published in 1971, shortly after her 21st birthday. To date she has published fourteen books and chapbooks of poetry, a translation of the Belgian Surrealist poet Paul Colinet, two novels, and one book of criticism. A new poetry book, House and Home will be published in Fall 2003 by Marsh Hawk Press. A large thrust of her work during the 1990s has been researching and editing the anthology Bearing Life: Women's Writing on Childlessness (The Feminist Press, 1999).

Her childhood experiences in Atlantic City, N.J. have played a large role in much of her writing. The landscape and tenor of the deteriorating resort in the 1950s and 1960s, before gambling was legalized, form the backdrop for her first novel, Bobby's Girl. The sea and beach have served as inspiration for many other poetry books.

During 1989 1990 she served as ghostwriter for three psychiatry books on Manic Depression, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Co Dependency. Working on these books, concerned with the problems which survivors of psychological and/or sexual abuse face when they enter into adult love relationships, offered new insights into the characters available to her fiction.

Since 1978, she's been Executive Editor of American Book Review. She was poetry columnist for The Soho Weekly News from 1975-1982, poetry editor of Israel Horizons from 1988-1999, and reviews regularly for Library Journal and other publications. She served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle from 1995-2001.

 

Web: www.rochelleratner.com
Email: rochelleratner@mindspring.com