Author Biography
Rachelle Singer is a poet and writer born in New York. Her father was a 59 year old divorced Russian Jew. Her mother, a 30 year old Roman Catholic Italian. Her father's wealth came from manufacturing women's wear in New York's famous Garment District. Rachelle's early childhood required mediation skills negotiating family battles arising from the violent alcoholic rages of her father, and her mother's ongoing infidelities. Her early years were indelibly marked by the violence of her father. His despair and suffering tempered her as she grew and understood why he raged. He doted on his daughter, taking her everywhere. Her childhood was defined by race tracks, bookmakers, small time mobsters and their endless gifts. Her mother was emotionally and often physically absent. Rachelle learned to read at age 3 and began writing at age 9. At age 19 she traveled to Israel after her father's death only to discover she was not a Jew as defined by Jewish law. In 1975 the only apparent path for conversion to Judaism appeared to be through Lubavitcher Chassidus. As a member of this of ultra-orthodox group for 13 years, she married and had five children. Years of poverty, isolation and lack of family support had worn her down. Leaving a world where television and other modes of secular communications were forbidden, in 1988, she applied for and was granted a scholarship to attend The New School. Determined to rebuild a future for herself and her children, she made the decision to temporarily leave her children and earned both a BA and MA degree in Media Communications. In 1992, she became a staff writer at The Cooper Union. While at The Cooper Union she was awarded a Silver Medal from CASE (Council for Support and Advancement of Education) as Editor of The Cooper Union Remembers: World War II. Separation from her children, leaving the security of the religious sect and the Judaism of her father's world, brought on nervous breakdowns over two decades. Her poetry has been published in Crannog, Ploughshares, West Wind Review, Indiana Review and The Poetry Garden.
