“I can’t remember my own birth, but I’m sure it was something like caving.”

That description of spelunking — cave exploring — by Gwendolen Gross in her novel “Getting Out” caught the fancy of Kirkus Reviews, which wrote, “Even committed couch potatoes should enjoy the graceful blending of outdoor adventuring and wry immersion in family dynamics.”

PROVIDED PHOTO

Novelist Gwendolen Gross.

Now Gross, a 1990 graduate of Oberlin College who lives in New Jersey, has written a third novel, “The Other Mother,” and she is being courted by a producer who might want to option the book for television.

National Public Radio described the book as “a thoughtful, multifaceted look at what divides and unites mothers.”

The book also is a featured selection of the Redbook Book Club and an alternate selection of the Book of the Month Club, the Literacy Guild Book Club and the Doubleday Book Club.

As a result of the novel, Gross began what is describes as a “Web site for moms who want to write” at www.gwendolengross.typepad.com.

You can make a living writing, said Gross, whom Book Magazine dubbed “the reining queen of women’s adventure fiction.”
 Gross said the important thing is to just start writing — and write a lot.

“Whether what I write ends up in a drawer, the recycling bin, or published, I have made a bit of an obsession about scheduling my writing time,” she said.

She estimates she writes between 1,000 and 10,000 words a day.

Gross, the mother of an 8-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl, used to hire a babysitter to get time to write. The pressure of having a limited amount of time available actually helped her write, she said.

And she’s even found the time — and the resources — for her second obsession: singing. A double major at Oberlin, graduating with bachelor’s degrees in science writing and voice, Gross, a mezzo soprano who has sung with the San Diego Opera Chorus, has her own chorus in New Jersey.

Before being published herself, she worked in publishing after earning a master’s degree in fiction and poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.

Even when she was at Oberlin College, she and her then-boyfriend, now-husband, Josh Rosenberg, a professor of finance, were dabbling in publishing. They wrote — and desktop published — a restaurant guide called Eating Ohio.

Gross said she has many fond memories of Oberlin and hopes to someday include the community in one of her novels.

“Writing is all about voice, and frame — about sense of language and sense of place,” she said. “All of those are informed, for me, by my Oberlin experience.”

In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement and discussion guidelines.
You must be registered and logged in to post a comment. If you aren't already registered, click here.
If you are registered, click here to log in.
Need help? Email Us.