Writing gets into your blood, much I suppose like any art or profession you’re passionate about. From the time I was a young girl, when I lay beneath apple trees in the backyard and devoured one book after another, until now when I continue to read voraciously, and write whenever possible, books are my life. I should say: stories are my life. True stories and fictional ones.
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Herta B. Feely is the author of Saving Phoebe Murrow, and has recently finished her next novel, The Strange Shape of Love. Both deal with the complex issues of social media and the dark web and their impact on modern culture. Currently, she is working on her memoir, Angels in Disguise, a story of her daring escape in Bogota, her subsequent arrest and ultimate return to freedom with the generous and unexpected help of people she encountered along her difficult journey. She is the co-editor and publisher of an anthology of 22 authors’ short stories and memoir, titled Confessions: Fact or Fiction?, in which she explores the blurred line between true stories and fictional ones. This project was inspired by the scandal surrounding James Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces. She organized readings for the anthology in bookstores in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and St. Louis. |
Now an editor, writing coach, and ghostwriter at Chrysalis Editorial, a company she founded in 2007, Herta has worked with hundreds of writers helping them to transform their writing, and then find agents and publishers for their work. She has also reviewed books for the Washington Independent Review of Books and does so on Goodreads. In addition, Herta (with Emily Williamson) conducts a series of webinars (Now That You’re Done, What’s Next?), which focus on the nuts and bolts of revision, getting published, and marketing your book.
In 2019, Herta received the DC Mayor’s Arts Awards for Excellence in the Humanities for her “hard work, creative talent and advocating for child safety.” She has worked for a variety of causes, ranging from human rights violations to alternative energy to childhood injury prevention. In 1988, she co-founded the National Safe Kids Campaign (now Safe Kids Worldwide) with pediatric trauma surgeon, Martin Eichelberger, MD. In 2023, SKW honored her with the first ever Herta Feely Communications and Advocacy Award, which in future years will be awarded to a deserving Safe Kids coalition, of which there are 400 in the US. Herta was born in Yugoslavia (when there was such a place), grew up in southern Germany, then St. Louis, and finally California. She received a degree in Latin American history at UC Berkeley, and also completed her studies at the university’s graduate journalism program. From Johns Hopkins University she received a Master of Arts in Writing. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, where she reads and writes, and tends to her many orchids. She is at the moment without pets. In her spare time, she travels the world and visits with her children. Son, Jack, lives in New York; Max and Megan, her son and daughter-in-law, live in San Francisco with their little daughter, Andi Rose, and huge dog, Alfie. |