D. Dina Friedman

D. Dina Friedman grew up in New York City, a place she still holds close to her heart. She met her husband forty years ago at an open poetry reading in a fifth-floor walk-up in Greenwich Village. Three years later they moved to western Massachusetts, (where she still lives—next door to a farm with 600 cows) because it was “a compromise between Brooklyn and the Ozarks.”

Dina’s five books include two young adult novels: Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) an Association of Jewish Libraries Notable Book for Older Readers and an American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults nominee, and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar Straus Giroux) a Bank Street College of Education Best Book. Her newer work, Immigrants, (Creators Press, 2023) and Here in Sanctuary—Whirling (Querencia Press, 2024) draw heavily from her years as a social justice activist. Dina has published poetry and fiction in more than 100 literary journals and received four Pushcart Prize nominations.

To learn more about Dina, and for inspiration on living a creative life in a creatively challenged universe, visit Dina’s blog on her website and on Substack.