JULIA HAYS KLEBANOW
Julia Hays Klebanow graduated from Harvard in 1977 with an honors degree in English, including a summa cum laude for her senior thesis, an explanation of the seemingly inexplicable prose of Gertrude Stein. She began her fundraising career with The National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD), not only raising over $1 million dollars in three years, but also securing a $200,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation that helped NTD become the first Western theater company to tour China in 1984. She continued development work in several private NYC schools, including Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School and The Rudolf Steiner School. It was during this time, in the midst of producing special events and auctions - as well as three sons - that she first recognized her true calling.
Julia began writing non-fiction in 2000, and published her first short story, My Son The Catcher, on the webzine Ducts.org., in 2005. Numerous assignments followed, running the gamut from biographical profiles for The Rudolf Steiner School’s Alumni NEWS Magazine to the quarterly newsletter for the UCLA Center for HIV Prevention Research, which she not only created but now edits and produces. Her first full-length book, I’m 49 and Grumpy, So Sue Me: How I Survived Mid-Life Crisis and Moved On is near completion, a fact which makes her far less grumpy at home in Westchester, NY, where Julia lives with her husband and children. In her spare time, she answers the creative needs of her many writer friends who seek her services as editor, mid-wife, and Muse.