Horwitz, Joshua 1955(?)-

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Horwitz, Joshua 1955(?)-

PERSONAL: Born c. 1955; married Ericka Markman (educational media distributor). Education: Attended Princeton University and New York University.

ADDRESSES: Home—Washington, DC. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Henry Holt & Co., 115 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011.

CAREER: Writer and publisher. Co-founder and president of Living Planet Press, Los Angeles, CA. Has also produced documentaries for Public Broadcasting System.

WRITINGS:

Only Birds and Angels Fly (children's book), Harper and Row (New York, NY), 1985.

(With Naomi H. Rosenblatt) Wrestling with Angels: What the First Family of Genesis Teaches Us about Our Spiritual Identity, Sexuality, and Personal Relationships, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1995.

(With Fred Epstein) If I Get to Five: What Children Can Teach Us about Courage and Character, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2003.

Writer of screenplays and teleplays.

SIDELIGHTS: Joshua Horwitz's first works included children's books and screenplays, although he commented to Connie Koenenn of the Los Angeles Times that his early writing career was "not particularly successful." That year, he and fellow environmental consultant Stephen Tukel established Living Planet Press with a focus on publishing books addressing environmental issues. Horwitz then went on to coauthor two books: 1995's Wrestling with Angels: What the First Family of Genesis Teaches Us about Our Spiritual Identity, Sexuality, and Personal Relation-ships, with Naomi H. Rosenblatt, and 2003's If I Get to Five: What Children Can Teach Us about Courage and Character, with Dr. Fred Epstein.

Wrestling with Angels centers on the book of Genesis and draws parallels between the lives of Biblical characters and many contemporary issues. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly stated that in the book, "we are reintroduced to the people that have shaped our lives, only to discover that, as adults, we more clearly understand their strengths and flaws, because we now recognize the same in ourselves." Ray Olson of Booklist wrote that the book "speaks powerfully to both the audience for self-help and personal-improvement literature and the current renewed interest in the family."

If I Get to Five is a collection of the experiences of New York pediatric neurosurgeon Fred Epstein. Booklist reviewer Vanessa Bush called the book "truly inspiring," commenting that it "poignantly recalls cases of children who have helped their families deal with the trauma of brain injury even as they themselves have been the ones undergoing gruesome surgery and taxing rehabilitation." In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a reviewer commented that the collection "recounts the stunning resilience of the human spirit," while Alice Hershiser wrote in Library Journal that "the life-and-death subject matter and the honest writing make it compelling and sometimes heartrending."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 25, 2003, "What to Read Next," p. C5.

Booklist, September 15, 1995, Ray Olson, review of Wrestling with Angels: What the First Family of Genesis Teaches Us about Our Spiritual Identity, Sexuality, and Personal Relationships, p. 115; March 15, 2003, Vanessa Bush, review of If I Get to Five: What Children Can Teach Us about Courage and Character, p. 1262.

Library Journal, March 15, 2003, Alice Hershiser, review of If I Get to Five, p. 102.

Los Angeles Times, October 8, 1990, Connie Koenenn, "A New Twist on Eco-Books," p. E1.

Publishers Weekly, August 14, 1995, review of Wrestling with Angels, p. 29.