Micol Ostow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Author
- editor
- educator
Micol Ostow | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 29, 1976 New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Novels |
| Notable works | Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa |
| Spouse | Noah Harlan |
Micol Ostow (born April 29, 1976) is an American author, editor and educator who has written more than 40 published works. Her first original hardcover novel, Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa, was named a "New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age". She has also been the ghostwriter for novelizations of television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed and Fearless.
Ostow was born in New York City to a Jewish-American father and a Puerto Rican mother. Her brother is the cartoonist, David Ostow. Even though she was raised in the Jewish faith (her mother, who was a Catholic, converted before she married her father), she always maintained a good relationship and remained close to her Puerto Rican Catholic family. In 1990, when her grandmother was dying in Puerto Rico, she joined her immediate family and other members of the family who traveled from Florida, New York, and other places to the island to be with her. The experience of seeing how easily the family banded together, despite the fact that some of them had never even met before, served as an inspirational factor when she wrote her first novel Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa.[1]
Raised in South Orange, New Jersey, Ostow graduated from Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union (now Golda Och Academy), a Jewish day school in West Orange.[2]
After Ostow graduated from college, she was hired by the New York City publisher Simon & Schuster, as an editor and began to author young-adult novels.[citation needed]
Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa
Ostow took a Media Bistro's YA (Young Adult) Writing Course. During the course she wrote the Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa pitch and the first ten pages of the manuscript in her class. She sold it before the semester ended.
The book is about a Jewish girl from the suburbs of New York. Her mother has family in Puerto Rico, but Emily has never had any contact with them – not until she is forced to go to the Caribbean for her grandmother's funeral. Even though Emily wants nothing to do with her Puerto Rican heritage a very special person shows her that uncovering her roots is like discovering a secret part of her own heart.[3]
