MIMI SCHWARTZ is the author of five books, including Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father’s German Village, Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed, and Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction (with Sondra Perl), now in its second edition. Seven essays have been Notables in Best American Essays, and she is Professor Emerita of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Her current project is an essay collection, When History Gets Personal, which includes this essay.
