Ana has degrees in education and teaches in public schools in New York City. She has combined this passion with her love of traveling by teaching in Kuwait, South Korea, and Mexico City. She has traveled the world over—her visits to Morocco, Italy, Croatia, Spain, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Israel have given her the opportunity to walk the paths of the characters she writes about.

Ana also enjoys life at home in the beautiful Hudson Valley area of Upstate New York. She’s a proud mother of a son serving in the United States Navy and the grandmother of three adorable grandchildren.

She has written three fiction books: Drawing Near to Paradise, Giving Entirely to Live, and The Passed Over Dinner: A Passover Tale.

• Where are you from? I am from the United States
• Why do you write? I write because it is cathartic, and I enjoy stepping into a new world with my characters.
• What do you write about? I write about everyday ordinary events in the life of familiar people. And I have learned that sometimes these ordinary people lead extraordinary lives.
• Do you have a specific writing style? I think I write like a talk. I am always telling stories, so I struggle with the show not tell style.
• What are obstacles that come in the way of writing? My full-time teaching job can be an obstacle because when I come home from school, I am too tired to write, and I only have Sundays.
• What’s the most memorable thing asked/said by a reader about your work? I like that one of the teachers in my school came to my classroom door and said, “I’m not hating your book.”
• How long have you been writing? Since I was nine so about fifty-five years!
•  When did you first realize you wanted to become a writer? In the fourth grade I wrote stories to entertain my classmates that became like a class soap opera.
• What is your work schedule like when you are writing? I do my best writing at night and since I’ve been home with the Pandemic, I write from 11:00 p.m. to 12:00 p.m.
• What would you say is your interesting writing quirk? I think my most interesting quirk is I can’t write with an outline
• How long does it take to write a book? My first self-published book took 6 months because I was working with a hybrid publisher, my second, third and fourth books took about two months each.
• Do you have suggestions on how to become a better writer? Write, write, and write some more and get good feedback. Don’t pay for editing and then revise. It’s a waste of money.
• What challenges do you come across when writing/creating your story? My characters sometimes choose their own destiny and I must go where they lead me.
• What do you think makes a good story? A good story is when there is an element of surprise. A character flaw you didn’t expect or the character steps out of the stereotype.
• What does your family think of your writing? It’s a hobby to them and they’ll say, “Oh so and so’s daughter/son wrote a book too.”
• Do you see writing as a career? Writing for me will be a second career because my first love is teaching. Although honestly teaching is losing its luster.
• Do you have anything specific you’d like to tell the readers? I think the takeaway from my books is that they should not try to force their story to be something It’s not, nor should they try to follow the formulas many self-writing books offer. They need to write in their own unique style and stop writing to impress. They’re not going to get rich by writing in these days. Unless Oprah endorses their book for her book club!
• When did you first consider yourself a writer? I considered myself a writer when I attended a Writer ‘s Retreat in South Carolina. Everyone there was a published author, and I came with my notebooks. When I shared the draft of my first novel with the group they loved it and I remember thinking. Heh I am a writer I can do this.