All About Me
Paula's first publication was a Letter to the Editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper written when she was seven years old. In it she pleaded to spend the newspaper's annual Christmas fund donations to purchase shoes for the impoverished children of Hispanic migrant workers in California's Central Valley. On the Sunday before Christmas, the letter appeared on the newspaper's front page.
Later, after earning a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and entering into a career as an academic research professor of social welfare and public policy, she became widely published in the social sciences. She has received several awards for her feminist-oriented research, graduate teaching, and non-fiction writing. Her books have won two international book awards, an Independent Publishers Book Award, a Pinnacle Book Achievement Award, a coveted Booklist Starred Review, and twice been named the Non-fiction Book of the Year by the Council for Wisconsin Writers. Her Letters to the Editor and Op-Eds on contemporary social and political issues are published in various outlets and newspapers around the country. All of these are social justice-driven efforts inspired by Tikkun Olam - repairing the broken world we find ourselves living in.
A native Californian, she spent several years in a Catholic girls' boarding school but has not been an observant Catholic for most of her adult life. Ultimately, she abandoned Catholicism in favor of a spiritual and actual journey leading her closer to her deeper Jewish roots, which she reverently embraces. She belongs to B'nai Jeshurun Synagogue in New York City and currently resides in the Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest with her award-winning writer husband, their dog, and various other wildlife. Across her career, she has authored ten books, so far.
CONTACT: paulawdail@gmail.com
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Awards include:
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Council for Wisconsin Writers 2012 August Derleth - Kenneth Kingery Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award
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Council for Wisconsin Writers 2016 August Derleth - Norbert Bly Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award
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Independent Publisher’s First Place Non-Fiction Award
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Literary Titan First Place Award for fiction
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Reader’s Choice Second Place Award for fiction
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Pinnacle Book Achievement First Place Award
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International Book Festival First Place Award
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International Book Festival Honorable Mention
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Bookfest Second Place Award
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Booklist starred review for non-fiction
My HP Books
Red Anemone – Secrets My Mother Never Told chronicles Natalie Barlow’s journey of self-discovery that begins when her estranged mother’s sudden death releases a storm of unrevealed family secrets going back to pre-WWII Germany. As Natalie navigates the complexities of her newly discovered Jewish identity, she comes face-to-face with the early 20th-century German immigrant experience, the deep antisemitism and anti-German sentiment that prevailed across America, and the personal costs this ugly reality extracted from generations of her own family. Ultimately, Natalie must face the question “What happens when you discover you are not the person you’ve always thought you were?” and consider whether, like Israel’s red anemones that carpet the western Negev and Dvira Forest of the southern Judean foothills year after year, she has the courage, resiliency and passion to embrace the personal changes that bring new beginnings.
