US writer. She wrote short stories, notably Hungry Hearts (1920), and on the basis of
that publication moved from New York to California, where her collection was made
into a silent movie.
Born in Plinsk, Poland, she emigrated to New York, New York, with her parents (c.
1901), and studied domestic science at Columbia University. She lived in the ghetto
of the Lower East Side, taught cooking (1905–13), was reportedly romantically
involved with John Dewey, educator and philosopher, and was married twice.
After a brief stint as a screenwriter from 1920, she moved back to New York and
continued to write novels about Russian Jewish immigrants, such as Salome of the
Tenements (1922). She published her autobiography, Red Ribbon on a White Horse
(1950), but her novels having gone out of fashion, she died in poverty.