Nora in her old windowseat at the grandmother's house in Samara, Russia (See Chapter 1 of 'Weather of the Heart')

At the age of eight Nora Lourie came to America from Russia and grew up in New York City. She graduated from Barnard College during the troubled decade of the 1930s and was finally able to marry her first love, a journalism student whom she met at college. He died just before World War II began, six months before their son was born. A second marriage produced four daughters, and she is now the proud grandmother of eleven, as well as three great grands.

In her busy life of work and family, the author’s early writing aspirations languished, but in her later years she was finally able to record her traumatic childhood, when she was a witness to history. After years of research and remembrance, and the fall of the Iron Curtain, the tale has now been told.

Enthusiastic readers convinced her that a memoir is an act of resurrection, so she was impelled to recreate the story of her first love during the depression years of the 1930s. She built this book around the hundreds of letters the couple exchanged during the years before they were finally able to marry, which she describes as ‘making love by mail.’   Written by two aspiring young writers, these letters paint an eloquent picture of that desperate time which shattered so many lives.

After living in the north till  her second husband died 25 years ago, Nora settled in the Carolina High Country near two of her daughters. She is anenthusiastic member of the High Country Writers, a support group which she credits with helping her realize her early literary ambitions.

Click here to read a great article about Nora  

Click Here to listen to Nora's NPR radio interview