Esther Altshul Helfgott is a nonfiction writer and poet with a Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington. She is writing the biography of Viennese-born Seattle psychoanalyst, Edith Buxbaum, Ph.D. and working on a poetry manuscript about her family of origin.
Esther is the author of Listening to Mozart: Poems of Alzheimer’s (2014); Dear Alzheimer’s: A Caregiver’s Diary & Poems (2013); The Homeless One: A Poem in Many Voices (2000). Poems or essays on Alzheimer’s appear in Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease; Into the Storm: Journeys with Alzheimer’s; Mastering Caregiving in Alzheimer’s Disease and other Dementias; Seattle P.I.; and elsewhere.
Work on psychoanalysis or Edith Buxbaum appears in American Imago: Psychoanalysis and the Human Sciences; Journal of Poetry Therapy, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Review; HistoryLink.Org: the On-line Encyclopedia of Washington State History; Seattle Star; BlackPast.org and elsewhere. Esther is a longtime literary activist, a 2010 Jack Straw poet, and founder of Seattle’s “It’s About Time Writer’s Reading Series,” now in its 27th year.