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 Rita Berman

       Rita Berman born in London, England, has made the USA her home since 1954.  For more than forty years she has written and published fiction and non-fiction stories.

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Also available on Amazon KDP

Carla Shuford lost her left leg when she was a teenager. If there is a true test of mettle, this is one. In this biography of her life, career and her devotion to volunteer service, Rita Berman tells Carla’s story with style compassion. She conveys the burden of Carla’s many challenges and the triumph of her many successes. Also included as a gift are Carla’s stories and poems.

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Also available on Amazon KDP

         I was watching the television program "Blind Date" recently and found it amusing to see how younger couples were behaving on a first date that had been set up by the producers.  A television host introduces us to the pre-matched couple who smile broadly, and appear eager to have a good time.  A camera crew accompanies them on the date so that the audience observe while the couple dine, dance, soak in a hot tub or go on action dates of their choice, such as playing basketball, bowling, receiving instruction in martial arts, sewing, or glass blowing.

        Watching someone else negotiate dating pitfalls can be helpful to those of us who because of divorce or death are looking for a new relationship. A speech balloon frequently pops up on the screen to clue viewers as to what the participants are thinking as well as saying; a thumbs-down sign appears when they commit dating no-noes.  In one episode, a woman waited until the last five minutes of a 10-hour date before mentioning that she was the mother of a young child.  In another, a man repeatedly bragged about his former girl-friend, and ignored the bored look on his date's face.  Neither of these situations led to a second date.    

Tension builds as to how the date will end.    Will they want to see each other again?    Will they hug, kiss, or have sex on the first date?  The camera crew retreat only when the decision is to have sex.

  $12.00 plus shipping

Also available on Amazon KDP

The Key" is a mystery-romance set in a small town in the American south. Dan, a carpenter in his mid-thirties is one of the construction crews working on a housing development.  He is proud of his work and develops an obsession with a lakefront house that he is building.  The mystery begins when Emily, a young, single woman, who works in the U.S District Court, buys the house and moves in.  

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Also available from Amazon KDP

      Rita Berman's latest book reaches back to her childhood experiences of growing up in the East End of London, England during World War II. Rita and her cousins are descendants of a blacksmith and tailor who fled to England in the late 1880's to escape the European anti-Semitism.

The result is a collection that parallels and sometimes differs on how their family suffered through those wartime events of food rationing, evacuations, and the bombing of their grandparent's house and factory.

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      Also avaliable on Amazon KDP

  Ariana Mangum and I were friends for more than 25 years.  We were readers and writers and shared many hours discussing the books we had read and what we were writing. I had been working as a freelance writer since early 1970 and Ariana, who had taught English Literature and reading before retiring, was working on nonfiction and fiction drafts. For almost twenty years, we were neighbors and in earlier years took walks together in the neighborhood. About fifteen years ago, when we were both on vacation in England we attended the week-long Writers Summer School in Derbyshire.

      A mutual friend, Carla Shuford, recently said what Ariana and I shared was “not only an ability and skill at writing, but even more importantly, a NEED to write that was as necessary as food, water, and shelter.”  

    Ariana fought through declining health to keep on writing.  In spite of her hospitalizations she took a lively interest in current events and persisted with her efforts to express her opinion on many subjects.  Her columns and letters to the Editor for the Chapel Hill News drew the reader’s attention to current events, sometimes relating them to her own life. Mark Schultz, editor of the newspaper, handled her letters.  In a tribute he noted that “she wrote about war, politics, and social mores, each short essay as fixed as her gaze.”

 Ariana Holliday Dickson Mangum was 88 years old when she died March 2, 2017.  She was raised in Richmond, Virginia and got her B.A. in English Literature from Penn State College (now University).  After marrying William Goodson Mangum of Chapel Hill they had five children.  In the 1980s she moved to Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland.  Here she spent about seven years teaching and writing before moving back to the United States.  She was in Ireland when Belfast was bombed and Ulster was in a turmoil with sectarian hatred. Many of her life experiences were later included in her books.

  After returning to the USA she lived in Chapel Hill and volunteered at Glenwood Elementary School helping the students to improve their reading skills.  She also completed various manuscripts and had them published.