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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 numerous short stories and memoir, published in literary journals and anthologies. She received two fellowships for a novel in progress – the James Jones First Novel Fellowship and an Artist in Literature from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities – and an American Independent Writing Prize in Personal Essay. 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. She organized readings for the anthology in bookstores in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and St. Louis. |
 Herta with author Carl Hiassen
at Key West literary seminar
Now an editor, writing coach and ghostwriter at Chrysalis Editorial, a company she founded, Herta has worked with hundreds of writers helping them to transform and perfect their writing and find agents and publishers for their work. She has ghostwritten two memoirs, both of which have been published. She also reviews books occasionally for the Washington Independent Review of Books. In addition, Herta is planning to conduct a series of webinars through Chrysalis Editorial which focus on the nuts and bolts of marketing, publishing, and revision.
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 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. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, where she reads and writes, and tends to her cats and many orchids. In her spare time, she travels the world and visits with her two sons, Max & Jack, in San Francisco and New York. |
Herta with Debbie Macomber at a literary event both were invited to, Ft. Lauderdale.
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Herta with Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing.
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