About Allegra Goodman

I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in Honolulu. When I was a seven year old living in Hawaii, I aspired to become a novelist--but I began by writing poetry and short stories.

In high school and college I focused on short stories and in June, 1986, I published my first in "Commentary." My first book was a collection of short stories, "Total Immersion." My second book, "The Family Markowitz" is a short story cycle that people tend to read as a novel.

Much of my work is about family in its many forms. I am also interested in religion, science, the threats and opportunities of technology, and the exploration of islands, real, and imaginary. My novel, "Kaaterskill Falls" travels with a group of observant Jews to the Catskill Mountains. "Intuition" enters a research a lab, where a young post-doc makes a discovery that excites everybody except for one skeptic--his ex-girlfriend. A rare collection of cookbooks stars in my novel, "The Cookbook Collector." A girl named Honor tries to save her mother in my dystopian YA novel, "The Other Side of the Island."

My newest novel "The Chalk Artist" tells the story of a young teacher, a chalk artist, and a boy fast disappearing into video games.