Mimi Schwartz was born in Forest Hills, Queens, and attended the University of Michigan and N.Y.U. for a BA degree (1961). She married at 21, headed west, and finished her MA degree at U.C.L.A. (1962). Seventeen years later, with her two children in high school, she received a doctorate at Rutgers University (1979) and joined the writing faculty of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, where she taught nonfiction and creative nonfiction for 24 years.

Her first memoir, Thoughts from a Queen-sized Bed, is about life in a long marriage: what you get and give up for that commitment. And how small moments (like a fight about who forgot the map on a trip to Cape Cod) reveal the larger story of two people--in the middle of women's lib--reinventing themselves, individually and as a couple. (This book was a JCC pick as one of the four best nonfiction books in 2002).

Small moments are also key to her new memoir, Good Neighbors, Bad Times - Echoes of My Father's German Village. A small story of the rescue of a Torah by Christians on Kristallnact led to a twelve-year quest on three continents to learn how good neighbors on the sidelines of history negotiated decency before, during and after Nazi times. And what that means for our own lives, wherever we live, today.

Her short work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, Fourth Genre, Calyx, Tikkun, Brevity, Jewish Week, Puerto del Sol, and Florida Review, among others. Six essays have been Notables in Best American Essays; several have won prizes in creative nonfiction and widely anthologized. Two in particular—“Memory? Fiction? Where’s the Line?” and “My Father Always Said” –appear in several best-selling creative nonfiction readers.

Schwartz has also published three books on writing, most recently, Writing True: the Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. Co-authored with Sondra Perl for Houghton Mifflin (2006), it offers fresh options to those writing nonfiction--be it memoirs, personal essays, profiles, Op Ed pieces, family history, or narrative journalism. Her other books on writing are Writing for Many Roles (1984) and Writer’s Craft, Teacher’s Art: Teaching What We Know,(1991).

A veteran speaker and presenter, Schwartz offers workshops nationwide and abroad. These have included, among others, the Geneva Writers’ Conference in Switzerland, the Kachamak Bay Writers’ Conference in Alaska, New Hampshire Writer Project events, and the Cape May Winter Prose and Poetry Getaway in New Jersey. She is a regular speaker at many national conferences such as AWP, CCCC, and Nonfiction Now, and gives readings, talks, and workshops at libraries, colleges, synagogues, and over-55 communities. (For upcoming events, see "Events" on this website.)

Schwartz is the founding editor of Reader-to-Reader in The Fourth Genre, a column to encourage readers to share their favorite creative nonfiction in capsule reviews. (If you’d like to submit some reviews, e-mail her at Mimi.Schwartz@att.net.)

She lives in Princeton, New Jersey with her husband, Stuart, and has two children and four grandchildren, all on the East Coast.

Professional Contact: Carol Mann Agency, 55 Fifth Ave, New York, New York 10003. Tel 212 206 5635

Magazines and Journals (selected): The Missouri Review, Tikkun, Fourth Genre, Creative Nonfiction, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Jewish Week, Writer’s Digest, Puerto del Sol, The Writer’s Chronicle, Calyx, Florida Review, New Jersey Monthly, College English, Christian Science Monitor, and Chronicles of Higher Education, among others.

See the recent article on Mimi Schwartz in the Trenton Times.

List of  Conference Venues (selected): Cape May Writers Getaway; New Hampshire Writers Project Courses; Martha’s Vineyard Writers Conference; Associated Writing Program Conference ; College Composition and Communication Conference ; Nonfiction Now Conference; Vermont College Post-Graduate Writers Conference; Ludington Writers Conference; Princeton Library Writers Program; Katchamak Bay Alaska Writer’s Conference, Geneva Writers Conference-Switzerland