Louise Steinman
 

Louise Steinman is a writer, artist and literary curator. Her work often deals with memory, history and reconciliation. Her book, The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War was cited as “A graceful, understated memoir… that draws its strength from the complexities it explores.” (New York Times Book Review) and “…an intimate and powerful story of the effects of war.” (James Bradley, author, Flags of Our Fathers). The book won the 2002 Gold Medal in Memoir from ForeWord Magazine and has been the selection of several All-City and All-Freshman Reads programs. The book chronicles her quest to return a war “souvenir” to its owner and—in the process—illuminates how war changed one generation and shaped another.

Her first book, The Knowing Body: The Artist As Storyteller in Contemporary Performance (North Atlantic Books)—was hailed by the L.A. Times as a “dazzling study of the performing arts.” The Knowing Body is based on two decades of Louise’s experience as a performer/director with So&So&So&So interdisciplinary theater troupe, and as a dance/theater critic for publications ranging from Willamette Week to High Performance, Oakland Tribune and others.

The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Polish-Jewish Reconciliation was published in hardcover and paperback, by Beacon Press. She has given talks and lead dialogue groups about the book around the United States, in Poland and the UK. The Crooked Mirror is published in Polish edition by Osrodek Karta (Warsaw). 

Her essays and feature articles have appeared in the The Los Angeles Review of Books; Los Angeles Times Magazine, New York Times Syndicate, L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Magazine, Salon.com, Washington Post and other publications. Her features have included profiles of Zen rabbis, Syrian refugees, artists, memoirists, combat veterans, translators, filmmakers, elevator operators and an innovator in deaf education. “Ordinary bodhisattvas,” she calls them.

She was the founder of the award-winning ALOUD at Central Library series for the Los Angeles Public Library and curated the series for twenty-five years. She frequently interviewed visiting authors. Louise is currently co-director of the Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities at USC. She was Senior Creative Advisor for the Sundance Institute Arts Writing Program, and is a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Review of Books.  Among her clients for literary consulting: PEN World Voices (2022) The Broad Museum; Skirball Cultural Center; Clockshop, Inc; Phil Glass' Days & Nights Festival (2021). 

Ms. Steinman was a 2013 and 2015 fellow at the Robert Rauschenberg Residency on Captiva Island, Florida, where she wrote "On an Island: Doing Rauschenberg Time." She was a 2018 writing fellow at Ucross Foundation in Sheridan, WY and is an artist-in-residence at San Francisco's Firehouse. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, Maymudes Family Foundation, Danish Arts Council and Adam Mickiewicz Institute. In 2018 she received the Chora Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from Metabolic Studio/Annenberg Foundation.   She collaborated with artist Dorit Cypis on an installation and social engagement project-- WELCOME THE STRANGER-- in Lublin, Poland for the 2019 Open City Festival. 

She lives in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles on a north-facing slope  within view of Silver Lake Reservoir, with her husband, sculptor Lloyd Hamrol.  On Friday nights, she dances in the kitchen while she cooks. She loves irises and owls.  In her studio/hut on the back slope she writes and draws, makes collages, dreams...