New Author Bio — Claudia S. Gold AKA Penofgold
ILLUMINATION
Early life
The members of my father’s synagogue began moving out of Mt. Airy because Black people were moving into the neighborhood. My father, a rabbi who had met Martin Luther King Jr., tried to persuade them to change their attitudes and stay. After all, Philly prides itself on being “the city of brotherly love”. From the Jewish perspective, the well-respected Rabbi Hillel, according to a Talmudic tale, taught that the Torah’s essential message is “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” But they left.
When a synagogue across the country offered my father a position he accepted it — to become the rabbi of Las Vegas. My older sisters Sharon and Judi did not want to move at all and my youngest sister Dodie was four — too young to see the big picture. But I was excited. At 11, I’d seen game shows where thrilled couples won trips to Las Vegas; lights flashed and exciting music played.
Las Vegas
At my new junior high in Las Vegas, an English teacher announced a contest to select a writer for the school paper’s humor column. I signed up as did Carter Chappelle, a quiet, brown-haired boy who I secretly liked. The teacher asked us to write a funny essay from scratch. I won the contest but not the hoped-for romance with Carter.
Thus emerged the humor column “Claudia’s Claustrophobia”. The graphic for the column displayed a bottle in which there was a turtle, with a daisy coming out of its mouth and out of the bottle. The title and illustration reflected how I felt at home at that time.
At the juncture of our move, Dad had been diagnosed and treated for colon cancer with a colostomy, my mom who was Orthodox Jewish was unhappy with the more conservative synagogue that played the organ on the Sabbath, and the stressors were heating up along with the sidewalks where it was said you could fry eggs. Outside the home, I delighted in adventures like eating my first tacos, decorating my new friend Mary’s Christmas tree, and working with friends creating fun skits for school assemblies.
After graduating junior high, I became a headline editor and editorialist for “The Desert Breeze”, our Las Vegas High School paper. I wrote satires on the noisy wooden blocks we used to clap at pep rallies in the gym, and…yes — about how it was time for girls to start wearing pants to school. To my surprise, the school stopped using the wooden blocks and started letting girls wear pants to school.
There was wonderful camaraderie amongst the staff and I still marvel at how the editor Gabby Green would magically edit all of my work. I want her clone. On graduation, I received a $50 journalism scholarship to go to the University of Southern California (USC).
Love Class, USC and Mushaholics Anonymous
It was the time of the Vietnam War. Who better to have as a teacher than Leo Buscaglia? I taught dance to blind children for his “Education for Exceptional Children class”, and sat cross-legged in the full room of his Tuesday evening “Love Class”. I am positive that Leo has never died, though the obituary says otherwise.
I summon his passion for jumping into life with loving-kindness in an articles I recently published on Medium.com:
Words that Reach Beyond Six Feet: A Stay-at-Home Meeting in New York, New York
I plan to publish another dedicated to him after the translation into Italian is completed. The stories are in the format of a fictitious “Mushaholics Anonymous” meeting whose members enjoy giving and receiving small acts of caring.
Inspired by major events of our times
After the Brett Kavanaugh hearing, I published the following stories on Medium.com:
After the Hearing I Had a Bi-Partisan Healing (My first story on Medium.com, trigger alert)
Isn’t it True: Perry Mason’s Verdict on the Brett Kavanaugh Investigation
At the time of President Trump’s impeachment hearings, and news of the creation of a space military, I intended to write a light, amusing article about the greetings at the end of emails, but was interrupted by two women asking me what I thought about two quotes from the Bible:
Like many writers, the COVID time — with its many indescribable titles for “what the hell?!” — inspired me to write the following stories, the first published by “The Haven”, about the cashier at Target ringing me up without gloves, and the next three in a series dedicated to New Yorkers, who at the time were tormented by a surge, published by “Moments of Passion”. Because I’d been born in Riverhead Long Island, and slogged my way through social work and public health schools at Columbia, New York has a special place in my heart.
Terror and Kindness in the Check-out Line at Target
Shout-Out to New York Sky-Scraper National Park — Kurt Vonnegut
Shout-out to New York Part II: Bubby
Shout-Out to New York Part III: Flying from Santa Cruz to Land in New York City
Novels and poetry
Breaking through denial, I wrote some poems about my late husband that were published in cancer anthologies. “All Things Baha’i” published an n-line flip-book compilation of my poems called “ A Pause Before Grace”, and “Tokens” magazine publishes my poems regularly.
I love to write after prayer and meditation because then the words rise off the page and take an illumined journey with radiant ease. Embarrassingly often, even to me, it’s as if I took truth serum when I write. (You writers probably know what I mean!) If I was to brag about one thing I’d say I have some ability to put words to excavations into subconscious feelings, and to the mystical journey.
Spiritual fantasy
A whole new approach to writing opened when I saw a man named Peter with a big smile on the dating site “Spiritual Singles” — from Tasman, New Zealand! After corresponding, he asked me to write a story together — about three beans.
Because I had those romantic feelings sparkling my heart to new widths and depths of creativity, my imagination flowed as my dream for a relationship did. He got busy with his sheep and building a paddock (fence) for them so I wrote the story which evolved into a book. About two years ago I visited Peter in the town of Upper Moutere in New Zealand, with its about six businesses and church and homes caressed by rows and rows of trees.
In our editing sessions, we used puppets for fun and to let the conversation flow naturally. Then we’d then put the puppet dialogue into the book which is tentatively called Gnomestory.
I returned for a six month visit. My room at the “Gingerbread House”, Peter’s organic bed and breakfast, opened up to a veranda with curves of flowers on paths every which way you walked.
In the mornings Peter grounds grains for our cereal and added hazelnuts from his trees. On special mornings he made sour-dough bread which he served with homemade plum jam. In the afternoon we would sit on the couch or veranda and edit the book.
While we were not each other’s solution to end our spiritual singleness, our team synergy was exciting as we edited. Because he had driven a bus and interacted with children for ten years, he was able to infuse fun and authentic dialogue and behavior of kids into the story. We did a public reading from the book with local children. Peter, Margot D’Hondt, a teacher/actor from the Steiner School and me.
As in Gnomestory, I create mythical characters and magical realism in a forthcoming book that is about the children of asylum seekers who are in detention centers. I learned more about these children when I was privileged to be part of a project called HUGS which sent letters to the children at a few detention centers in El Paso through an organization that provided legal services for the chidren. (This letter writing is currently not allowed).
One of my most significant books, which I’ve worked on for over 20 years is about a retreat in another dimension for women who’ve been sexually assaulted. I received the Gwen Wakeling Endowment for the Arts for working on this book.
Another book in progress is about my father, the rabbi of Las Vegas. I seem to have the gene keyboard of my father playing in me more than my mom’s practical genes. I imbibed his sermons, with their passion for being loving and caring about the world from babyhood to adulthood.
Yet his background as a child had been from a patriarchal Chassidic family, and though he carved his own path in many ways in Las Vegas, he was so busy that at home we were expected to be quiet.
Due to this enforced silence, I have this yearning to express from the mountain tops: Here I am, And this is what I’ve experienced. And I hope it may help you on your journey — feel less unhealthy guilt and shame, more healed and integrated, more able to take in sincere compliments, more feeling normal as you navigate life’s adjustments and catastrophes, and — entertained!
Which brings me to my work and hobbies
I’ve designed a creative healing process called “Emerge” based on the The Creative Connection:Expressive Arts as Healing work of Natalie Rogers. It is the best journaling tool I know and people I do it with have amazing results in hearing their inner truth and weaving together pain and wisdom. I love it! I recently completed a seven-week session teaching this practice on zoom.
I have been a clinical social worker for over 30 years, mostly in medical centers, in the last few years leading groups in mental health centers. I have taught 30 university classes in the Human Services, Religion, and Sociology of American Popular Culture.
For fun and sanity I do “Five Rhythms”, a creative movement class to music corresponding to the rhythms of life, and experiment with writing calligraphed quotes in vibrant colors. I’m a mom and, most recently, a grandmother.
First time
For the first time, I am introducing myself with my unfiltered truths and whimsical journeys to readers and writers of ILLUMINATION. I’m already experiencing encouraging interchanges with several ILLLUMINATION writers. I’m excited to be part of this creative vision and experiment.
