Elizabeth L. Silver

Last updated
Elizabeth L. Silver
Silver at book signing .jpg
Silver at a book signing, 2014
Born (1978-10-27) October 27, 1978 (age 46)
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • memoirist
Education University of Pennsylvania
University of East Anglia
Temple University
Years active2013–present
Spouse
Amir Moldovan
​
(m. 2006)​
Children2
Website
www.elizabethlsilver.com

Elizabeth L. Silver (born October 27, 1978) is an American writer, attorney, and creative writing teacher. She has published two novels with legal themes, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton (2013) and The Majority (2023), as well as a medical memoir, The Tincture of Time: A Memoir of (Medical) Uncertainty (2017).

Contents

Life and career

Born in New Orleans and raised in New Orleans and Dallas, [1] Silver comes from a Jewish family and is the daughter of a surgeon. [2] [3] She attended Highland Park High School in Dallas and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, graduating in 2001 with a degree in English. [1] [4] [3] After college, she taught English as a second language in Costa Rica and worked in book publishing in New York. [5] She subsequently earned a master's degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia in 2004. [1]

Silver attended law school, earning a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 2008 from the Temple University Beasley School of Law. [1] Stating that she "very quickly fell in love with criminal law", [5] she worked for two years as a research attorney for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, an experience that helped inspire her first published novel, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton. [1] [6] [7] She continues to work occasionally in the legal field. [8] During Donald Trump's first term as president, she spent a week working as a volunteer attorney for asylum seekers at the Mexico–United States border. [9]

Silver married Amir Moldovan, a rheumatologist, on May 28, 2006. [10] The couple live in Los Angeles with their two children. [11] [2] In addition to her own writing projects, Silver teaches creative writing at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and is the founder and director of Onward Literary, which provides mentorship to aspiring writers. [12] [13] [14] After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022, she wrote articles for The Guardian and Ms. magazine highlighting the inadequacy of mammograms for screening women with dense breast tissue. [15] [16]

Writing

Silver has published two novels, both inspired by her legal training and experience. Her first novel, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton, centers on a 35-year-old woman who has spent ten years on death row for murdering her father's pregnant girlfriend. The novel explores the evolving relationship between the murderer and the victim's mother, a Philadelphia attorney, who offers to convince the state governor to commute Noa’s sentence to life imprisonment if Noa will reveal why she carried out the killing. [17] [18] It has been translated into six languages. [1] Her second novel, The Majority, focuses on the fictional 83-year-old Sylvia Olin Bernstein as she reflects on her life and career on the Supreme Court of the United States. It is a fictionalization of the life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court from 1993 until her death in 2020. [18] [19] [20]

Additionally, Silver has published a medical memoir, The Tincture of Time: A Memoir of (Medical) Uncertainty, chronicling her experience as a parent within the medical system after her six-week-old daughter suffered an intracerebral hemorrage and was admitted to the newborn and infant critical care unit at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. [21] [2] Silver's writing has also been published in The Washington Post , New York magazine, Harper's Bazaar , The Los Angeles Review of Books , Lilith, McSweeney's , and elsewhere. [12]

Notable Works

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gerz, Alix (2015-01-15). "Elizabeth Silver". Temple Now. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  2. 1 2 3 Lane, Cassandra (2017-11-10). ""The Tincture of Time" Author Elizabeth L. Silver Talks Uncertainty". L.A. Parent. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  3. 1 2 Terrazas, Beatriz (2017-05-11). "With her baby's life in the balance, what could Elizabeth Silver do? Write". Dallas News . Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  4. ↑ Weinberg, Steve (2013-06-15). "Book review: 'The Execution of Noa P. Singleton,' by Elizabeth L. Silver". Dallas News . Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  5. 1 2 "Street Interviews: Elizabeth L. Silver". 34th Street Magazine. 18 July 2013. Archived from the original on 6 August 2013.
  6. ↑ Davies, Michellle (2013-06-30). "Book Review: The Execution of Noa P Singleton by Elizabeth Silver". Daily Express . Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  7. ↑ "Elizabeth L. Silver | Bookreporter.com". www.bookreporter.com. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
  8. ↑ "Bio". Elizabeth L. Silver. Retrieved 2025-09-02.
  9. ↑ Silver, Elizabeth L. (2021-05-24). "What Does "Credible Fear" Really Mean?". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  10. ↑ "Alumni Notes". The Pennsylvania Gazette. 2006-11-01. Retrieved 2025-09-02.
  11. ↑ "Bio - Elizabeth L. Silver". elizabethlsilver.com. Retrieved 2017-02-07.
  12. 1 2 "Elizabeth L. Silver – Instructor | UCLA Extension". www.uclaextension.edu. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  13. ↑ "About Us". Onward Literary Mentoring. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  14. ↑ "Elizabeth L. Silver | Penguin Random House". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  15. ↑ Silver, Elizabeth L. (2023-04-26). "Why did my mammogram not detect my stage three breast cancer?". The Guardian . ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  16. ↑ Silver, Elizabeth L. (2024-08-17). "Finding a Snowball in a Blizzard: The State of Breast Cancer Screening". Ms. Magazine. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  17. ↑ Egan, Elisabeth (2013-09-06). "Book Review: Execution of Noa P. Singleton". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2017-02-07.
  18. 1 2 Patrick, Bethanne (2023-07-06). "A novelization of RBG's life reminds us what the Supreme Court once stood for". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  19. ↑ Lipkin, Elline (2023-10-24). "The Ms. Q&A With Elizabeth L. Silver, Author of 'The Majority,' an RBG Novel". Ms. Magazine. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  20. ↑ Berne, Suzanne (2023-07-20). "Review | RBG inspires once again, this time a novel". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  21. ↑ Spungen, Amy (28 April 2017). "The Tincture of Time". Jewish Book Council . Retrieved 2025-09-01.
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