Judy M. Goodman
Judy M. Goodman has been published as a journalist, poet, fiction writer, and film reviewer. As a writer of microfiction, she won two contests, one in fiction for the short story "An Odd Friend" and the other for a humorous review of Eats Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss. Her blog: "Intimations" can be seen on WordPress. As a member of Jane's Stories Press Foundation board since 2010, she feels blessed to work with a group of amazing women writers whose strong feminist and humanist beliefs inspire her.
One of her fun tasks for JSPF is to provide writers prompts for Jane's Stories' Book Buzz, a club dedicated to bringing readers together with writers.
In addition to the contests, Judy has had the short story "Izzy" published in The Letter I Have Never Sent You and Other Stories from America and Beyond and two others, "The Sun Houzi Monkey" and "Win-Win" will appear in the upcoming anthology Many in One and Other Stories. Both are from Royallite Publishers.
At JSPF's 2013 Retreat
"Sonnie" & "Gingy"
aka Dad & Mom
circa 1930
Developing an interest in genealogy late in life she hit a very thick, brick wall on her mother's grandfather, who has a frustratingly common name, born either in Austria or Hungary.
Her next non-writing project will be a genealogy site through which you can keep up with her progress. So far, her cousin and genealogy mentor Jane Neff Rollins, a professional genealogist, told her about a particularly interesting brick wall in her family studies: a cousin who was in one of Roosevelt's brain trusts then totally disappeared! Certainly, harder to crack than Judy's enate great grandfather, this barrier has given a little.
When the lady farthest right grew up, she gave birth to Judy's mother! Judy once saw a photo of her great-grandmother (center) as an older woman with her mother (as a child), but hasn't been able to find it since starting the research. Judy doesn't know which of the women -- her grandmother's sisters -- was the seamstress. There were a bunch of brothers, too! Her mother's immediate family had mostly gone by the time Judy came along and she was shocked to learn her mom a load of aunts and uncles--she doesn't even think her mother, having been orphaned at seven, knew that!
She doesn't remember it looking this shiny in the 1950s!
Though neither of their parents saw the millennium turn, Judy and her brother remember them vividly and with great fondness. Her brother lives about twenty minutes away with his wife, their son and daughter, two Cavachons, and a turtle.
Born in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Judy still thinks of it as her home town. Just before second grade, she was ripped from a comfortable life in a third floor walk up with a courtyard surrounded by three buildings, hers on 53rd Street and the other two on Kimbark, tended by a janitor called Julius whose favorite words, "Keep off the grass!" soared through missing teeth and over the omnipresent toothpick. The more southern building on Kimbark projected a wall to define the "play" area and, of course, it sported the most ignored sign in the city: "Do Not Throw Balls Against This Wall."
Though dragged to the suburbs and dropped into a tight, nearly exclusive cadre of kids her age, she found the continued friendships with the others displaced from the courtyard remained strong, despite the weekend-nature of the gatherings.
Definitely a suburbanite, Judy has lived in Wilmette, Evanston, Northbrook, IL, and Los Angeles. As a young adult, she sojourned on the Northside of Chicago and, for a brief moment in time, on a kibbutz. Now back in the suburbs, she feels more settled.
Her Baccalaureate from Columbia College in Chicago is in Writing and Film . Though she's done graduate work in Linguistics and Library Science, her professional education includes "Book Length Manuscript Preparation" through Wild Dove Studio and Press, with Glenda Bailey Mershon (author of Eve's Garden and sa-co-ni-ge/blue smoke), "Comedy Writing" at Second City Chicago, Michael McCarthy of "Saturday Night Live" instructing, and a short story workshop given by Pushcart Prize nominee Tamara Kaye Sellman.
When she lived here, it looked a lot different. Right outside her window (which faced the same way the arrow points) was a Kroger Foods where she met the Oscar Mayer sausage spokesman "Little Oscar" and watched him drive away in the Wiener Mobile. Now there's a mini-mall Even the front of the building looks different since the balconies took wing.
2018 Jane's Stories Board
Glenda Bailey-Mershon Susan Windstead Samantha Mershon Linda Mowry Judy M. Goodman
Vice President Treasurer President Secretary
"Izzy" (in The Letter I Have Never Sent You) is available on Amazon.
Full of life at 15.5 years when they met in late February 2015, Gingy danced around like a four-year-old when she was ready for a treat which was most of the time. She was still an absolute love on August 1, 2015 when her passing left an ache in Judy's heart.
Read more about her on Judy's blog called Intimations.
Hello!
 | ||||
