Persimmon Tree, an online magazine, is a showcase for the creativity and talent of women over sixty. Too often older women’s artistic work is ignored or disregarded, and only those few who are already established receive the attention they deserve. Yet many women are at the height of their creative abilities in their later decades and have a great deal to contribute. Persimmon Tree is committed to bringing this wealth of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art to a broader audience, for the benefit of all.

Margaret E. (Peggy) Wagner is Editor in Chief of Persimmon Tree. Her 35 years with the Publishing Office of the Library of Congress, first as writer/editor, later as managing editor, afforded her broad experience in all phases of print and online publishing. She led the project teams that produced some of the Library’s major reference works, and is also a published author herself. Peggy’s passions include wide reading and a deep appreciation for the power and importance of fiction, poetry, music, and the visual arts.

Greta Berman is Art Editor of Persimmon Tree. She received a B.A. from Antioch College, an M.A. from the University of Stockholm, and a Ph.D. from Columbia. She has recently retired from her position as Professor of Art History at Juilliard, where she taught for 46 years. In addition to writing a monthly column, “Focus on Art,” for the Juilliard Journal, she co-curated and co-edited Synesthesia: Art and the Mind with Carol Steen, at the McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Ontario in 2008. She and Steen also published a chapter titled “Synesthesia and the Artistic Process” for the Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia (Oxford University Press, 2013). She has published numerous articles, as well as lectured on synesthesia, and other subjects.

Cynthia Hogue’s tenth book of collected poetry, instead, it is dark, was published by Red Hen Press in June of 2023. Her other collections include Revenance, listed as one of the 2014 “Standout” books by the Academy of American Poets, and In June the Labyrinth (2017). Her third book-length translation (with Sylvain Gallais) is Nicole Brossard’s Distantly (Omnidawn 2022). Her Covid chapbook is entitled Contain (Tram Editions 2022). Among her honors are a Fulbright Fellowship to Iceland, two NEA Fellowships, and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets (2013). She served as Guest Editor for Poem-a-Day for September (2022), sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. Hogue was the inaugural Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University. She lives in Tucson.

Gena Raps, Persimmon Tree Music Editor, has performed internationally and across the United States.  Her performances of Mozart, Brahms, and Dvorak have been recorded by the Musical Heritage Society, Arabesque and Naxos among others. She has taught at the Juilliard School, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Mannes College of Music and has received numerous prizes and honors. She has been on the jury for competitions at the Juilliard School and the Fulbright Fellowship.  

Elizabeth Zimmer writes, mostly about the arts; teaches writing wherever she is invited; and edits manuscripts of all sorts, including those on this site. She holds a B.A. from Bennington College, where she studied with Howard Nemerov, and an M.A. from Stony Brook University. She practices the Feldenkrais Method, and works as a standardized patient in hospitals and medical schools. Her ambition is to flourish as a stand-up comic. Elizabeth serves on Persimmon Tree‘s editorial committee and is the magazine’s chief proofreader.

Jean Zorn is the publisher, with responsibility for Persimmon Tree‘s administrative, legal and financial matters. She is a lawyer, and retired in March 2018 from the City University of New York School of Law, where she had worked for more than 30 years, primarily as a Professor of Law, and, most recently, as Senior Associate Dean for Administration and Finance. In addition to her publishing duties, Jean edits Short Takes.

Nancy H. Williard, who has recently joined Persimmon Tree’s volunteer staff, primarily as a proofreader, returned to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina after twenty years living outside Yosemite in California. After fifty years of work as an educator and librarian, she traded her Harley for an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. In 2021, her short story won an Honorable Mention in the Doris Betts Fiction Prize. (she/her) https://www.nhwilliard.com

Margaret E. (Peggy) Wagner is Editor in Chief of Persimmon Tree, and president of the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. Her 35 years with the Publishing Office of the Library of Congress, first as writer/editor, later as managing editor, afforded her broad experience in all phases of print and online publishing. She led the project teams that produced some of the Library’s major reference works, and is also a published author herself. Peggy’s passions include wide reading and a deep appreciation for the power and importance of fiction, poetry, music, and the visual arts.

Jean Zorn is publisher of Persimmon Tree and secretary/treasurer of the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. She is a lawyer, and retired in March 2018 from the City University of New York School of Law, where she had worked for more than 30 years, primarily as a Professor of Law, and, most recently, as Senior Associate Dean for Administration and Finance. In addition to her publishing duties, Jean edits Short Takes.

Co-director of the Romare Bearden Foundation, Johanne Bryant-Reid is a member of the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. Born and educated in West Virginia, she received a BA from West Virginia University. After serving for seven years as primary fundraiser of the Bearden Foundation, she was named it’s co-director. The foundation was created in 1990 as a non-profit, aimed at preserving and perpetuating the legacy of this pre-eminent African-American artist, as well as emerging and mid-career artists.

Nan Gefen founded Persimmon Tree in 2007 and is its Publisher/Editor Emerita. She has recently agreed to join the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. Nan has published three nonfiction books, most recently It Never Ends: Mothering Middle-aged Daughters. Her novel, Clear Lake, won the gold medal in general fiction in the IndieFab contest. She has recently agreed to serve on the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc.

Gena Raps is Music Editor of Persimmon Tree and a member of the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. Her performances of Mozart, Brahms, and Dvorak have been recorded by the Musical Heritage Society, Arabesque and Naxos among others. She has taught at the Juilliard School, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Mannes College of Music and has received numerous prizes and honors. She has been on the jury for competitions at the Juilliard School and the Fulbright Fellowship.  

Nan Gefen founded Persimmon Tree in 2007 and is its Publisher/Editor Emerita. She has recently agreed to join the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. Nan has published three nonfiction books, most recently It Never Ends: Mothering Middle-aged Daughters. Her novel, Clear Lake, won the gold medal in general fiction in the IndieFab contest. She has recently agreed to serve on the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc.

Kitty Cunningham (1935-2023) was a contributing editor of Persimmon Tree until her retirement from the editorial board in December 2021. She is the author, with Michael Ballard, of Conversations with a Dancer (St. Martin’s Press, 1981). Kitty was for many years Head Librarian at the Brearley School in Manhattan.

Marcia Freedman (1938-2021) was a member of Persimmon Tree‘s founding editorial board. Marcia served until 2020 as Persimmon Tree’s marketing and fundraising director, and was indefatigable in both roles, making a success both of ArtsMart and of Persimmon Tree‘s semi-annual fund drives. She published a political memoir, Exile in the Promised Land, an account of the establishment of second-wave feminism in Israel and her experience as a Member of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament).

Sue Leonard served as Editor in Chief of Persimmon Tree from 2012 to 2022. She was the magazine’s second editor after its founder Nan Gefen. For 45 years, she taught every variety of history except American mostly at independent high schools for girls – with a brief stint in a poverty program school for pregnant teens in Bedford Stuyvesant. In the mid-nineties she and her late husband John Leonard were co-editors of the Books and Arts section of the Nation Magazine. Since retiring, Sue has filled up her days with reading, needlework, family, and friends.

Rosellen Brown
V (Eve Ensler)
Maxine Hong Kingston
Deena Metzger
Alicia Ostriker
Gloria Steinem, Advisor Emerita

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Sophie

by Barbara Kamler

At age fourteen, Sophie Kamler crossed the Atlantic alone, from Poland to America. At sixteen she paid for her siblings and mother to follow. At eighteen, a penniless wife, then a mother of three, she defied New York gangsters. At fifty-six, a widow, she married again only to be widowed a second time. Matriarch to a sprawling but tightly-held family of descendants, hers is a story of ambition and of love given, withheld, slighted, sustained, and disappointed. This book is a moving tribute to a courageous woman, told here by her granddaughter, Barbara Kamler.  Riveting vignettes, photographs and poetic reflections combine to tell an affecting tale of love, pain and determination.  It is a story that will resonate with the experience of so many remarkable women, whose rich histories remain untold or defined by stereotype, minimising the complexity and vibrancy of their lives. "Sophie Kamler’s story sweeps up the history of the twentieth century in one life. From pogroms to displacement, from freedom’s devouring ambitions to love that can endure years of suffering—this book of fragments, voices, memories and reflections offers readers gem after gem of wisdom. I found it unputdownable, almost holding my breath all the way through." —Kevin Brophy, Professor of Creative Writing, University of Melbourne; Founding Director, Five Islands Press, Australian literary magazine; recipient 2018 Michel Wright Prize for Poetry. "So much of who we are is predicated on the decisions, hardships, and downright luck of our ancestors. Barbara Kamler has written a deeply moving tribute to her grandmother Sophie in a series of vignettes that engage with the complexity and limitations of memoir, leaning into these connections, parallels and palimpsets to create a composite portrait that feels expansive and true." —Magdalena Ball, poet, reviewer, Managing Director of Compulsive Reader, author of Bobish, a verse memoir of her great-grandmother. Available from Amazon.

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