I am the author of “When Knitting Becomes Nurture With Yarn, Needles, Hooks in Hand,  Caring Flourishes in a Cleveland Neighborhood”. I also started a knitting group 13 years ago at the Rice Branch Library located in a struggling part of Cleveland’s East Side. The group still meets today. The medium is knitting and crocheting. But much more, it I about the lives of the people and the community they have formed. This book is a memoir of two intertwined stories that run in opposition to each other. One is the nurture that flourishes in this group and empowers individuals and community. The other is about the powerful and intractable forces that still circumscribe many of their lives. The fight to build their lives, their children’s and their grandchildren’s never stops. Yet, beautiful things emerge from this group, not only knitted and crocheted garments, but the blossoming of individuals and the building of community. I graduated from Oberlin College. After college, I managed the Head-Start program in Pittsburgh and then the Shady Lane School, a private preschool. I turned to writing and journalism and became a reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. When I moved to Cleveland I worked at the Plain Dealer where I was a columnist writing about women and family issues. This is my third book. The others are: Tevye’s Grandchildren,” and “the Notion of Family, a collection of my Plain Dealer columns. I am married to David Bergholz. We have three sons and four grandchildren. The book is available on various websites and at local yarn and bookstores.