books

Nomi Eve

Elkins Park native Nomi Eve was living in Boston when her first novel, The Family Orchard, was published in 2000. Fourteen years later, she’s about to publish her second, and this time she’s back home. Between books, she’s been busy raising her three children. Henna House, set in Yemen in the 1920s, tells the story of a character named Adela and the passions and trials of her Jewish community. It will be published by Scribner in August.

“I’m pretty much a hermit,” Eve says of her tendency to shy away from the local writing community. Then, she explained a bit more: “I’m one way of being a writer. I’m home with my kids. I’m a PTO mom, and I write. That’s my community.”

For five years, Eve was part of a writing group with several other local authors, including Robin Black, Rachel Pastan and Rachel Cantor, who now lives in Brooklyn. Although she loves being with other writers and going to readings, the demands of her suburban family lifestyle make that challenging. “When I make my book,” she says, “I’m just home making my book.” 

What she does love and what inspires her as a writer is teaching. Over the past several years, she has taught creative writing at the Abington campus of her alma mater, Penn State, and through The Word Studio, run
by another local writer and writing coach, Janet Benton. 

Currently, Eve, 46, is a lecturer in the creative-writing program at Bryn Mawr College. “That’s one way I’ve been a writer outside of my house,” Eve says. “I invest time in those kinds of relationships [with students]. I’ve learned so much about my own writing from my teaching. It sounds clichéd, but I get as much from my students, or more, than they get from me.”

Now that Henna House is about to be published, she says she’s looking forward to getting out and about in the local literary community.