My mother was a Holocaust survivor who lived through two concentration camps (including Auschwitz), two Nazi ghettos, and an infamous death march that started in Poland and ended hundreds of miles away in Germany. Most of her family—including parents and three siblings—were murdered.

When I was born there was great hope placed in my ability to make something of my life so I could replace so many lost relatives. You could say every one of my breaths—from my first at Brooklyn’s Maimonides Hospital to the one I’m currently taking at my Washington, DC desk (actually a recliner ’cause I’m lazy) — is a Fuck You to Hitler.

But I like to flip this fury at The Furor around. Every day I try to honor the gift of life I’ve been given. I take this very seriously. Though I almost always go for a cheap laugh.

Growing up, I had a very loving family but I also happened to live on a block shared by two pedophiles. (Yup: two pedophiles on one block!) These men molested scores of neighborhood children, including me. I was also sexually abused by a teenager around this time. I was four when most of this abuse occurred.

Because I couldn’t process these events, I spent most of my childhood convincing myself nothing happened. Then, at 16, for some unknown reason, I mentioned these events to a friend. As the words were still spilling out of my mouth, I had a weird thought: This kind of storytelling is going to save my life.  I don’t know how I knew that, but I was right That’s not to say there haven’t been consequences. A lot of healing needed to be done, documented in my play MARRIED SEX, my essays published in The New York Times, Salon, and other publications, as well as in my bestselling memoir THE PLEASURE PLAN.

I never wanted to be a writer. My highest childhood aspiration was to be a check-out girl in the supermarket. But I changed my mind when I discovered That Girl, starring Marlo Thomas. I was going to be a financially unstable, unmarried actress in Manhattan, living in a run-down apartment. That’s exactly the life I created right after getting my B.A. in Theatre from Brooklyn College. 

However, a few years later, while walking down the street, a monologue fully formed in my head.

Eventually, short monologues turned into full-length pieces.

In the mid-90s I moved to Prague and began writing huge solo pieces and multicharacter plays.

When I came home five years later, I started the MFA playwriting program at Brown University, where I got to work with amazing mentors like Paula Vogel and Nilo Cruz.

After grad school, I decided to concentrate on trauma as a theme in my work (mostly connected to my mother’s experience). I also got involved in using story to help others overcome traumatic events. Eventually,I was invited to teach a story/performance workshop at a drama festival in Mostar, Bosnia that brought together teens from all over the former Yugoslavia. I used storytelling and drama to facilitate dialogue between Jewish Israelis and Arabs from all over the Middle East. Eventually, I was working with teens living in poverty in DC, soldiers returning from and Afghanistan, sexual assault/abuse survivors, and female military veterans.

In 2011 I was offered a play commission by Theater J in Washington, DC. I decided to write about a secretive and shameful aspect of my life–how sexual abuse had affected my body, especially my erotic body.

It was terrified but I knew that being public about my struggles was tantamount to healing. The play that emerged, Married Sex, was performed in the New York International Fringe Festival as well as Off-Broadway. I began work on a book that is based on this play, which was published in 2020. Now, I’m turning this book into a television series.

These days, all my work revolves around sexual healing

Based on my experience, I am on a mission to help others reclaim sexual vitality as a way to reach their own potential.