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EMILY FRANKEL, Dancer, Choreographer, Actor, Director, Writer

EMILY FRANKEL is a modern day renaissance woman who relishes a good challenge. An avid writer and published author “Splintered Heart,” Bantam Books), Emily Frankel has five new novels featuring five intriguing heroines ready to be read. 

But, despite a committed literary agent and a talent for intriguing plots, solid characterizations and an instinct for compelling, well-written prose, the books have gone wanting a publisher.

Impatient with today’s lengthy and trend-focused publishing process, Emily Frankel has taken matters into her own hands with the emphatic, unapologetic publication of her new novels for FREE, online at her recently established online virtual publishing house, called TheReadery.com

Her inspiration for publishing books by installment? The master of the episodic novel, Charles Dickens, of course. Most of his major novels were first written in monthly or weekly installments and only later reprinted in book form. Episodic publishing made the stories easily accessible, cheap and widely anticipated.

“I’m not looking for money,” says Emily Frankel about offering her novels for free. “I just want my words to be read – right now. Today! In all my novels, I play with plots so that my characters are affected by the latest newest things in everyday life, in art, politics, economics, human rights, women rights, technology, medicine, fashion, media, plus the names in the air.”

Emily Frankel's new Web site offers a sample chapter from each book and a  Virtual Library from which to download and read the entire volumes, installment by installment. If readers want to talk with Emily about her work --or anything else for that matter -- Emily Frankel is all ears. She has created a blog called Em's Talkery to encourage feedback and communication.

A RICH CAREER IN THE ARTS
Emily Frankel’s writing career began while she was active as a dancer, choreographer.

In New York City, two of her plays "Zinnia" and "One Fine Morning in the Middle of the Night" were presented Off Off Broadway; "People in Show Business Make Long Goodbyes," was presented Off Broadway at the Orpheum Theater. "Footsteps in the Rain" was chosen by the WPA for its Phase One series; her adaptation of "King Lear" was presented at the Terry Schreiber Studio Theater. 

Commissioned by the Empire State Festival of the Performing Arts, Em wrote "Rondejambe" for The Egg Theatre in Albany. 

As playwright in residence at the University of Michigan, her trio of one-act plays, "Bd’way Arts" was acclaimed by the area newspapers as the best play of the season. 

Her adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac (a role she tailored for her husband, Broadway and television star, John Cullum was produced at Syracuse Stage, Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre and toured major cities of the U.S. and Canada under the auspices of Cin Columbia concerts. 

For "Kings" which Emily Frankel and John Cullum presented on Broadway at the Alvin Theater, Em adapted and choreographed "The King Must Die," a novel by Mary Renault.

Emily Frankel danced in the companies of Martha Graham and Charles Weidman. As Founder, Artistic Director of her own American Dance Drama Company, she performed in more than a thousand American cities; toured Europe under the sponsorship of the U.S. State Department and the Arts Council of Great Britain; was a guest artist at Jacob’s Pillow Festival, New London Dance Festival and the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds. 

As soloist with symphony orchestras, performing in the United States, South America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the Far East, Emily Frankel capped off her dance career at Lincoln Center’s Tully Hall with a 70 minute performance of Mahler's "Fifth Symphony."

Emily Frankel’s novel, "Splintered Heart" was published by Bantam Books. A book about her was written by Teague Jackson, a sports writer, entitled "Encore–The Professional and Personal Triumph of Emily Frankel," published by Prentice Hall. <P> Her new play, "Shattering Panes," is scheduled to be presented at Studio 17, a showcase theater space which Frankel and Cullum have in their NYC home/dance studio/office. The couple has a son, JD Cullum, who is an actor.<P>

Frankel's acting/playwrighting ventures in NYC include the full-length dance play, “Zinnia” performed at the Colonnades Theater and the lead in “People in Show Business Make Long Goodbyes” at the Orpheum Theater off-Broadway; in “Deathtrap, ”starring Frank Gorshin at the Westport Country Playhouse, she played the wife (the role originally played by Marion Seldes). In “Look Homeward Angel,” at Syracuse Stage, she played the Matriarch Mother (originally played by Jo Ann Fleet.) <P><P>