A teacher as well as an author, Szeman received her doctorate in creative writing from the University of Cincinnati in 1986. She has taught creative writing, literature, technical writing and composition at the university level for 21 years. She currently is associate professor of English at Central State University near Dayton. She arrived on the literary scene about seven years ago with The Kommandant's Mistress, a highly charged, evocative and emotional story of a young Jewish woman taken as the mistress of a death-camp commandant. Her books read like our minds work.
Plans also are under way to make the novel into a movie.
The novel is dead-on in its depiction of the destructive power of a disease that can devastate a family. The event is sponsored by and is a fund-raiser for the WOSB Advisory Council to provide education projects in local elementary schools and maintenance of the broadcasting equipment that serves Marion, Wyandot and Crawford counties. This year's sponsors for the Five Nights series are Whirlpool Corp., Adelphia, Marion Steel Co., WDIF, Bun's Restaurant, Verizon, Wyandot Inc., Medical Mutual of Ohio, and Herald Printing in New Washington. The training center will be a satellite office of the Alber Enterprise Center and will serve businesses in Delaware, Union and Franklin counties. The types of training to be offered include computer training, web design and maintenance, networking and certification programs.