Shelly Gitlow My first serious attempts at writing were articles for my high school’s newspaper. And I was lucky to get some choice assignments, including interviews with Peter, Paul and Mary and The Young Rascals. I still have the used tambourine the Rascals bequeathed to me. When I went to college, I studied French and Spanish, aiming for a career as a translator. Then the ’60s hit, and I wanted to change the world, so I got an M.S.W. I practiced clinical social work with families for many years, both in New York City and Miami. After having our daughter, I co-authored three books in the quality management field with my husband, a professor of management science. That was fun and interesting, but after re-discovering my love of writing, I decided to pursue my dream of penning screenplays. So I wrote five of them, one of which was optioned but never produced. After many years and much tribulation, (boy is that an understatement!) I had the pleasure of co-writing the script for the feature film Boynton Beach Club with director Susan Seidelman. Susan remembered a script I sent her earlier and contacted me when she was creating Boynton Beach Club. And what became of my screenplay that was optioned but never made? I rewrote it as a novel titled Dispatches from Paradise!
