New Paltz retiree has 16 novels to her credit

Retiree Sheila Schwartz has spent the better part of the last five decades writing about everything that interests her: teaching, travel, terrorism and, most recently, romance between a younger man and an older woman.

But when this UUP member and professor emeritus was asked how much of her romance novel — which contains a lot of “graphic sex” — is autobiographical, she cracked a coy smile, raised an eyebrow and said, “It does poke fun at the boredom and pretension of academe. The rest is none of your business.”

Her business, though, has always been teaching and writing.

Despite her feigned reluctance to divulge any romantic interludes, Schwartz was candid with The Voice. Sitting in her cozy, mountainside home in New Paltz, Schwartz shared her thoughts on teaching, writing, politics and the union.

Schwartz, who retired from SUNY New Paltz in 1995 as a professor of English education and writing, has spent the past half century teaching writing to everyone from elementary and secondary school students (beginning in New York City in 1946) to prisoners, retirees in Elderhostels and women’s groups. She annually spends two months at a health spa in Mexico, where she teaches writing and film appreciation classes four days a week.

Her writing career took off with her 1967 novel for young adults, How People Lived in Ancient Greece and Rome. To date, she has 16 books to her credit, including the mainstream novels The Solid Gold Circle (Crown/Dell) and Sorority (Warner).

At Voice press time, Schwartz was awaiting word from Harlequin as to whether her yet-to-be-titled romance novel will be published. “No matter how many novels you turn out, you still have to push every book up that hill again,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz’s 1978 novel Like Mother, Like Me (Pantheon/Bantam) was made into a CBS film. In 1991, she wrote and produced an award-winning documentary in France, The Children of Iziue, about the wartime deaths of 43 Jewish orphans at the hands of Nazi Klaus Barbie, known as the Butcher of Lyon.

In a somber moment, Schwartz recounted the heartbreak of her daughter’s untimely death in 1978. As a “lasting memorial” to her daughter, who died of a brain tumor at 25, Schwartz finished her daughter Nancy Lynn’s historical novel about the Hollywood blacklist, The Hollywood Writers’ Wars, which was published in 1982 by Knopf/McGraw-Hill.

Schwartz dedicated her first novel of the new millennium, The Little Terrorist (Xlibris), to her daughter — “a writer of honor, integrity and social conscience who continues to be an unending source of inspiration to me.”

This confident, no-holds-barred woman doesn’t see herself as simply a successful novelist. A self-professed “lover of the arts,” Schwartz is an accomplished pianist and an avid horseback rider. Of the latter, she reflected: “I love the smell, the feel, the air against my face, the grass. To me, it represents freedom.”

Schwartz is also “left-wing politically” and is an ardent supporter of a woman’s right to choose. “I am nuts on the subject of social justice,” she said. “I don’t like oppression or political depression. That’s why I like the union.” Although she recently lost her re-election bid to serve on the union’s statewide retiree committee, Schwartz said she looks forward to working with her fellow unionists in some capacity.

“The best part about being in a union is the feeling that you’re not alone,” she said. “If I have the chance, I’ll get back into it.”

— Karen L. Mattison