​​​​ALMOST AMERICAN takes place during the roaring twenties. Serene, the child narrator of GLASS HEARTS, is now Sarah, and she’s fourteen. You can read the first two chapters in EMBARK MAGAZINE. Chapter 5, "Mrs. Shylock," appeared in the April 2022 edition of THE WILDERNESS HOUSE LITERARY REVIEW.

FOREIGN GIRLS begins at the dawn of the Great Depression and traces one very significant year for Sarah as she turns twenty-one. Read the first chapter in ROARING TWENTIES: A DECADE OF STORIES. 

My relatives argued in a mash-up of English, Yiddish, Hungarian, and Russian, often about who paid for whose college education--a hot topic at family gatherings, especially funerals.
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Before becoming a writer, I was a social worker, college professor, and computer programmer (because I love to write but am also reasonably good at math). My most interesting job was working on the space shuttle at NASA in the 1980’s. I was there when Challenger exploded.

I  write historical fiction about the Jewish immigrant experience in the early twentieth century. My first novel GLASS HEARTS ​won the FRIENDS OF AMERICAN WRITERS and OHIOANA Book Awards. I've also published short stories and poetry, along with the occasional blog.​

​I'm working on two more novels based upon family stories about the challenges involved in bridging the old world and the new--and eventually becoming American:

Terri Paul