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annie  kassof   I   writer

  illustration by Annie Kassof for her story about becoming a foster mom, published in the East Bay Express

Annie's first published writing was a suicide fantasy in the form of a poem; it was printed in her high school literary magazine in 1974. She earned her Liberal Arts B.A. from a tiny alternative college in New England in 1978, then soon rode 3000 miles west on a Greyhound bus to the San Francisco Bay Area and stayed. Another poem was published in the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal in 1984, followed by a long writing hiatus while Annie worked at a series of graphic arts jobs. She also silk-screened T-shirts, sold yo-yos at Fisherman's wharf, proofread, worked as a freelance illustrator, gained 12 units in Early Childhood Education, taught arts and crafts, and substitute taught at preschools. She tried est, therapy, boyfriends, spirtuality, mandolin lessons, ceramics, and yoga. She left partners and found new ones, moved a lot, rode motorcycles and horses, had a son, bought a house.

In 1999 she felt the strong pull to try something new, and, wanting to make a difference, she trained to become a certified foster parent. Inspired by having followed through on an impulsive idea she started writing again. Her "15 minutes of fame" came with the publication of a three month long "journal" that she wrote while completing her foster parent training and getting her first children. With minimal editing, it was published as a feature story in the East Bay Express newspaper in December, 1999 (link now defunct). She was also asked to illustrate it (see above).

Adopting one of her foster children, an irresistible African American four-year-old in 2001 (in a transracial adoption) inspired more stories. Annie continued to write about her nontraditional family; adoption; race, and the choices she'd made. She quietly became an advocate for foster parents, foster children, and domestic and transracial adoption. Her subsequent stories, Letters to the Editor, and radio broadcasts reflected her new found passions. Over the next seven years Annie fostered twenty more children and continued to write and publish articles, primarily on foster care and adoption.

In 2006 after her teenage son was diagnosed with an illness, Annie stopped fostering other people's children to focus on her own. She's currently at work on a memoir, and on a children's book about her daughter's adoption, which she's illustrating as well.

When she's procrastinating instead of working on the above (a good deal of the time), she fantasizes that she's living in a cabin in the woods with a horse to ride, children visiting, and nothing more she feels compelled to write about because she's already said everything she wants to say.