At CBE, we count many acclaimed authors, journalists, and screenwriters among our membership. We hope you will join us for our series The Shmutz, where the writers in our midst will introduce us to the books, ideas, and authors they can’t stop thinking about.
About the book: Los Alamos, 1943. The US Army has gathered scientists to create the world’s first nuclear weapon. Their families, abruptly moved to the secret desert base with no explanation, have simple orders: Stand by. Make do. Above all, don’t ask questions. Hill of Secrets explores the toll of keeping secrets and asks how the moral questions facing scientists during World War II are still relevant today. A gripping and provocative wartime novel.
The event is free and open to the public. A wine and cheese reception will follow the event, with signed books available to purchase. Please register in advance.
Barbara Grossman: A longtime member of CBE, Barbara attended Bard and the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa and then spent several decades in trade book publishing at Knopf, Crown, Harper and Row, Simon and Schuster and Penguin.
Galina Vromen: Galina began writing fiction after more than twenty years as an international journalist in Israel, England, the Netherlands, France, and Mexico. After a career with Reuters News Agency, she moved into the nonprofit sector as a director at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. She launched and directed two reading readiness programs in Israel, one in Hebrew (Sifriyat Pijama) and one in Arabic (Maktabat al-Fanoos). During her tenure, the two programs gifted twenty million books to young children and their families and were named US Library of Congress honorees for best practices in promoting literacy (for details see the My Other Life page). Her fiction has been performed on NPR’s Selected Shorts program and appeared in magazines such as American Way, the Adirondack Review, Tikkun, and Reform Judaism. Hill of Secrets is Galina's first full-length novel (it took her 12 years to write it!). She has an M.A. in literature from Bar-Ilan University in Israel and a B.A. in media and anthropology from Hampshire College in Massachusetts. Galina and her husband divide their time between Israel and Massachusetts, where she loves to swim, hike, kayak, write, read and hang out with friends.