Amy Meltzer
I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore. I attended Beth Tfiloh Day School, and the Bryn Mawr School for Girls, where we wore dresses and bloomers to gym class. I was a good, but not great, student. My favorite classes were English and anything with boys. I loved to write and had some wonderful teachers (including my mother) who impressed upon me the importance of clear, concise writing and above all, impeccable grammar. I even studied Latin, a language that no one speaks anymore, for four years!
I went to Wesleyan University, where I studied History and Religion. After college, I spent a summer moving furniture into dorms while I tried to decide what to do next. Much to the surprise of my friends and family, I took a job teaching at an outdoor education center called Nature's Classroom, where I took children on hikes, learned how to tan animal hides, and fell in love with the wilderness. After that, I spent many summers leading backpacking and canoeing trips. In my free time I tried to get as far away as possible from the city.
And then I moved to New York City. (Go figure.) I studied in a women's yeshiva called Drisha, where I learned Aramaic, another language that no one speaks anymore. I studied the Torah and Talmud, and many other old and wonderful Jewish books. (I no longer minded not having boys in my class.) I also got my first teaching job in a Jewish day school called Beit Rabban. I learned a lot about teaching. I also learned that I didn't know nearly enough about teaching. I enrolled in a graduate program in Western Massachusetts, and stayed to take a job teaching at a new Jewish day school in the same town.
After teaching first and second grade for four years, I got married and moved to Ashland, Oregon. Two years later our first daughter Ella was born, and we moved back to New England to be near our families. We bought a house and quickly hung up a lot of mezuzot, precisely two weeks before the birth of our second daughter Zoe. My husband Keith and I still live in New England, where I teach, write and take care of our daughters.
What did I leave out of my quick life story? Here are a few more items, in no particular order. My husband and I adopted a big Yellow-Lab/Golden Retriever mix named Zev from the pound, I founded a very cool program called the Teva Learning Center, I learned to play guitar, lived in Jerusalem, and backpacked by myself across Alaska.
A Mezuzah on the Door is my first book. My second book, The Shabbat Princess will be out in 2011.
