About Gwen

Author

About

I am a writer. It is what I do. It is what I can’t live without. Writing is my oxygen and my best friend. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to live. I mean that literally. Writing has been there for me always, helped me change, grow and take what life has thrown at me. 

I have written stories since I was five years old, and in 2006 published my first novel. I have had half a dozen short stories published and am now working on personal essays and poetry as I edit my second novel. I haven’t done as much as I would have dreamed, as my “earning” profession has been journalism – covering the Mideast conflict for the past 36 years.

Several years ago, in the middle of earning an MA, I decided I needed a way to share with others how writing can become a coping mechanism, a way to navigate difficult moments and life in general.

That’s when I began to study at the Therapeutic Writing Institute, a rigorous certificate program that prepared me to give workshops and present others with writing tools that helped me and could help others find a personal lighthouse in their own words. The studies were thrilling and I and many of my fellow students felt enriched and changed as human beings as we reached completion. My workshops are not just for writers. They are for everybody, and if a participant does not want to write, they can draw or sketch a response to an exercise.

Offering this gift to the world has become, like my personal creative writing, a mission and a passion.

Leslie Hunt Palumbo

Gwen Ackerman is a published author and short story writer. She has taught writing-for-resilience workshops and business journalism and has experience working with creatives, journalists and others. 

Gwen Ackerman

Media Bio

Gwen Ackerman is a former senior journalist with 36 years of experience, more than half that time working for Bloomberg News where she served as bureau chief of Israel and the Palestinian territories and senior writer. 

She has published one novel, four short stories, several book reviews, and translated a book of poetry by Hava Pinhas-Cohen. She has a bachelor’s in creative writing and dance from Hunter College in Manhattan, and a MA with a thesis in creative writing from Bar Ilan University in Israel. She is a certified Journal to the Self Instructor and Certified Journal Facilitator.