Claire Hartfield
Chicago, Illinois, United States Email: claire@MeAndUncleRomie.com
Home page: http://www.MeAndUncleRomie.com
Claire Hartfield is a native and lifelong resident of Chicago, Illinois. She attended the public schools of Chicago, received her B.A from Yale University, and her law degree from The University of Chicago.
Me and Uncle Romie is Hartfield's first children's book. Though the story is fiction, it is based on the life of renowned African-American collage artist, Romare Bearden. Hartfield was first drawn to Bearden's work by the storytelling quality of his collage compositions and, particularly, his focus on ritual as a universally shared human experience.
As a very shy five-year-old, Hartfield began taking creative dance lessons. She found that through dance, she was able to express and communicate her ideas. She continued to study ballet and jazz dance through adulthood, and also taught dance classes, helping others to express themselves through art. Me and Uncle Romie uses story as a framework for discussion of these concepts in a way that makes art accessible and meaningful for children.
Hartfield has long been involved with education, with particular focus on helping to provide educational opportunities to under-served children. As a lawyer, she has specialized in school desegregation litigation, using her legal skills to negotiate equal educational opportunities for those who historically have been relegated to inferior schools. More recently, she has been involved in setting policy and creating programs in a charter school setting. She is presently Chief of Staff at the Alain Locke Charetr Academy on Chicago's African-American West Side.
Part of the impetus for the writing of Me and Uncle Romie was to inform children on the life of an important African-American visual artist, and to give children an expanded understanding of the breadth of the African-American experience. The story also explores the commonality of experience that is shared by people across cultures.
One of Hartfield's greatest pleasures is raising her own three daughters, Emily, Caroline and Corinne. It was through reading to her girls that she experienced first hand, the ability of books to transform a child's understanding of the world and their place in it. The magical and powerful role of books in the life of children drew her into writng. Interests: Dance, Piano, Guitar, Reading, My kids!
Published writer: Yes
Freelance: No |
