Harriet May Savitz is putting her money where her heart
is.
STEVE
SCHOLFIELD photo
Author Harriet
May Savitz is shown in her office at her Bradley Beach home.
Issues that are important to her are reflected in her books.
"Dear Daughters and Sons -- Three Essays on the American
Spirit . . . A Tribute" was prompted by the terrorist attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001. Her interest in civil rights for the
disabled resulted in several books, including the novel "Run
Don't Walk." |
The 70-year-old
Bradley Beach writer of both fiction and nonfiction works for
children and adults is donating 50 cents from each copy sold of her
latest work, "Dear Daughters and Sons -- Three Essays on the
American Spirit. . . A Tribute" to the veterans' organization, the
American Legion.
Savitz's slim new volume, published by Little Treasure
Publications, Ocean City, contains three essays prompted by the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "We Are One," "I Bought an
American Flag Today" and "Dear Daughters and Sons" captures the
patriotism and devotion Savitz feels for her country, in good times
and bad.
"I wrote 'Dear Daughters and Sons' in part because of the
veterans I wrote about in the 'wheelchair athletes' books. They had
to fight their way into restaurants because the doorways were narrow
and there were steps. They fought for signs in parking lots, they
fought to be visible."
In the 1970s, inspired by actual wheelchair athletes, Savitz
began writing her series of fiction (and one nonfiction) books on
these physically challenged people, most of them veterans returning
from fighting for their country in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
"While I was writing those books, I traveled with the wheelchair
athletes teams, I interviewed them and some of them stayed in my
house. I remember a double amputee going into a swimming pool and
removing his protheses and everybody getting out of the pool because
they were afraid to be in the pool with this man.
"Here he had lost his legs fighting for them, and they were
turned off by them. So, the new book was my way of getting our
daughters and sons to really see them."
The wheelchair athletes' books are "Fly Wheels Fly," "On the
Move," "The Lionhearted," "Wheelchair Champions" (a nonfiction
work), and "Run Don't Walk."
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