Stewart Florsheim
Stewart is now semi-retired after spending 40+ years in high tech. He sits on the boards of a couple local non-profits and also does other volunteer work. He leads writing workshops, including a memoir-writing workshop for Holocaust survivors.
Biography
Stewart Florsheim was born in New York City, the son of a Holocaust survivor and a refugee from Hitler’s Germany. He has received several awards for his poetry and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has been widely published in magazines and anthologies.
Stewart was the editor of Ghosts of the Holocaust, an anthology of poetry by children of Holocaust survivors (Wayne State University Press, 1989). He wrote the poetry chapbook, The Girl Eating Oysters (2River, 2004). In 2005, Stewart won the Blue Light Book Award for The Short Fall From Grace (Blue Light Press, 2006). His collection, A Split Second of Light, was published by Blue Light Press in 2011 and received an Honorable Mention in the San Francisco Book Festival, honoring the best books published in the Spring of 2011. Stewart’s new collection, Amusing the Angels, won the Blue Light Book Award in 2022 and will be published by Blue Light Press in early 2023.
Stewart has been awarded residencies from Artcroft and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. He has held readings throughout the Bay Area, as well as in New York, Boston, London, and Jerusalem. He also writes non-fiction and has participated in KQED’s Perspective series. Stewart is on the board of directors of Jewish Family and Community Services of the East Bay and End of Life Choices California. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife.
Published Works
Poetry
Amusing the Angels (Blue Light Press, 2022)
A Split Second of Light (Blue Light Press, 2011)
The Short Fall from Grace (Blue Light Press, 2006)
The Girl Eating Oysters (chapbook; 2River, 2004)
Edited Work
Ghosts of the Holocaust (anthology; Wayne State U Press, 1989)
Links to Sample Works
- Minyan, “The Journey Back”
- Canary, “Message: Sitka Sound”
- “Hunger” (and other poems on Florsheim’s author site)
