Bio: Clea Simon
I'm the author of three nonfiction books and a mystery series. The nonfiction books are Mad House: Growing Up in the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings (published as a Doubleday hardcover in 1997, released as a Penguin paperback in 1998), Fatherless Women: How We Change After We Lose Our Dads (Wiley, 2001) and The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats (St. Martin's Press, 2002). My Theda Krakow mystery series was launched in 2005 with Mew is for Murder and continues with Cattery Row and Cries and Whiskers, all now available in paperback. The fourth Theda book, Probable Claws, is due in April, 2009!
My essays are included in the following anthologies: Cat Women: Female Writers on Their Feline Friends (Seal Press) and For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth About Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance (Seal Press). My short mysteries will be included in Deadfall: Crime Stories by New England Authors (Level Best) and Cambridge Voices. I have also written new introductions for two Agatha Christie classics, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary, to be published by the Barnes and Noble Library of Essential Reading in March, 2009.
I also do a fair amount of journalism, including the Boston Globe's "Radio Tracks" column about New England radio, which is published on Thursdays and can be read in the Boston Globe (check in the Living/Arts section). My writing also pops up occasionally in the New York Times and the Boston Phoenix, and such magazines as American Prospect, Ms., and Salon.com. I used to do a fair amount of music criticism, but now primarily focus on relationships, feminism, and psychological issues.
I grew up in East Meadow, on suburban Long Island, N.Y., and came to Cambridge, Mass., to attend Harvard, from which I graduated in 1983. I've never left, and now happily cohabit with my husband, Jon S. Garelick, who is also a writer, and our cat Musetta.
