Lynn Rosen
Author of A Man of Genius
THIS IS MY STORY
I was born in New York City at a time when trolley cars traveled the streets. I left the city in my mid-teens to study at the University of Wisconsin. When I returned, my professional life began.
I found an exciting job in public relations where I specialized in two emerging fields: independent films and something called “television.”
After a few years, to my mother’s surprise and joy, I married a doctor, and courtesy of the US Airforce, we took off for a three-year assignment in Japan. While in Japan I continued my work in public relations under contract to the U.S. Airforce. Upon our return to the states, we settled in Rochester, NY, and I began my graduate studies, eventually earning three graduate degrees.
When I look back upon those years of graduate studies, I wonder – why three degrees? I suspect, in large part, it came about because I found that the happiest hours in my day were spent in seclusion in my study carrel, high up under the dome of the university library, surrounded by books, with no other sounds other than the shuffling of feet and the turning of pages in other carrels. There were no computers then.
Following graduate school, I joined the faculty of the University of Rochester where I taught for many years. Then it was time to move again – this time to Cleveland Ohio where I was appointed dean of faculty at a local college. In time I was named college president.
Just before my investiture, I left to start a computer software company with my older son. I anticipated that this would be my last professional adventure.
The company was eventually sold and I returned to New York City where I worked as an educational consultant to state and local government. While living in the city, I developed a mentoring program for achieving students in underachieving schools. Those were the years filled with challenging work, world travel, and the joy of living in a city that provided me with easy access to the arts – all of which fall under the title “the good years.”
A few years after my return to New York City, my husband, an eminent obstetrician/gynecologist, who dedicated his career to the study of the developing fetal brain, as well as to defending and encouraging women’s health care rights, died of ALS. He was sixty years of age.
In time I found that widowhood entailed many challenges and the pace of the city was daunting. I opted for a more serene life. I sold my New York City condo, packed my belongings, and returned to family and friends in Rochester, NY, where I now reside.
I am now an octogenarian. From the age of eleven, I‘ve written books of fiction and non-fiction, as well as essays and book reviews, many of which have been published. Now there is A Man of Genius, and there’s more on the way.
I don’t think of myself as a writer; I think of myself as a storyteller. I delight in telling tales; tales that extend beyond the final sentence, and give meaning to the connection between the thoughts that swirl about in our minds and the world about us.