Marlene Wagman-Geller 

Marlene is a veteran high school English teacher in National City, CA, which is on the San Diego-Tijuana border. She regularly uses her research to spice up her lessons and interest her students (with varying degrees of stress and success) in reading. Marlene’s love of reading came from growing up in Toronto, Canada where she spent much of her time indoors reading. She received her BA in English from York University and her BA in Education from University of Toronto. She moved to southern California and received her certification to teach from San Diego University. She currently lives in San Diego with her husband and daughter.

Books by Marlene:

Once Again to Zelda: The Stories Behind Literature's Most Intriguing Dedications (Perigee, 2008)

Mary Shelley dedicated Frankenstein to her father, her greatest champion. Charlotte Brönte dedicated Jane Eyre to William Makepeace Thackeray for his enthusiastic review of the book’s first edition. Dostoyevsky dedicated The Brothers Karamazov to his typist-turned-lover Anna Grigoyevna. And, as this collection’s title indicates, F. Scott Fitzgerald dedicated his masterpiece The Great Gatsby to his wife Zelda. Once Again to Zelda explores the dedications in fifty iconic books that are an intrinsic part of both literary and pop culture, shedding light on the author’s psyche, as well as the social and historic context in which the book was first published.