I am an award-winning freelance journalist based in Brooklyn (formerly based in Providence, R.I.) and an Adjunct Lecturer in the English Department at LaGuardia Community College. Last year I graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction from the New School, where my graduate thesis was a book-length work of narrative journalism about hepatitis C and addiction. This is not a blog, but rather a collection of some of my work.

I have a special interest in the criminal justice system and health care for the underserved and disenfranchised, particularly HIV/AIDS. (Before I became a journalist, I worked as an outreach worker and research assistant at an HIV clinic.) I also write news and book reviews, and have been known to write enthusiastically about music, politics, and contraception.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look at my clips.

News!

7/5/09 "Lost and Found: Stories From New York," the new anthology from Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, is now available! It contains my story, Water, One Dollar.

5/13/09 "The Advocate," my profile of Rhode Island child advocate Jametta Alston, won first place in the profile category of the Rhode Island Press Association's 2008 Editorial Awards.

5/6/09 My manuscript, "Tough As a Shoe," was just awarded the non-fiction prize in the New School Chapbook Competition for 2009. Here's what the judge, Deborah Copaken Kogan, had to say:
Somebody get Beth Schwartzapfel a contract at the New Yorker. She’s ready. With subtlety and intelligence and a narrative voice like a dry martini, she managed to turn that well-worn trope (violent, drug-addicted man turns his life around with the help of a patient, kind mentor) into a contrapuntal symphony of a love story: an atypical love story, to be sure, but a love story nonetheless.
The story will be published as an edition of 250 chapbooks. If you'd like a copy, drop me a line!

FORWARD>Schmooze>Play on Words: An Alternative Forward




Play on Words: An Alternative Forward

By Beth Schwartzapfel
January 23, 2007

When members of San Francisco’s Congregation Sha’ar Zahav receive their synagogue’s newsletter, they get a copy of the Forward. The Jewish Gaily Forward, that is. Founded in 1977 as a synagogue for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual Jews, together with partners, family and friends,” Sha’ar Zahav has the unique position of being a gay synagogue in what is arguably the nation’s gayest city. So it’s only fitting that its newsletter should evoke its Jewish-ness… with a twist.

“We always want to take creative energy into all of the elements of how we present ourselves,” said Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, editor of the JGF, as the newsletter is affectionately known. The newsletter is “changing the name of a Jewish institution in a way that’s sort of fun and positive and reminds people why change is needed in the Jewish world. We have to make sure that people of various sexual identities are included in mainstream Judaism.”

Like most synagogue newsletters, the JGF runs profiles of its members and reports on community events and initiatives. The publication features a rabbi’s column and a page for naches. Unlike most synagogue newsletters, the JGF also runs such pieces as “Transgender Celebration Shabbat a Wild Success!” and “CSZ Queer Torah Study Project.”

Kaiser, whose day job is senior editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture, says the newsletter’s title is actually a double double-entendre. In addition to being a play on the title of this paper, it’s also a nod to an old gay joke. While out for a drive, some friends come to an intersection. “Should we go straight?” asks the driver. “Heavens, no!” answer the passengers. “Go gaily forward!”

Unfortunately, Kaiser says, the original Forward has less reach in the Golden State than it used to, and as a result, not everyone among her readership gets the other joke of the newsletter’s title. “Today on the West Coast, people don’t really get it so much,” she told The Shmooze. “But when you explain it to people, they think it’s hilarious.”

Labels: , ,