Her first children’s book, “The Bear Who Couldn’t Sleep,” was published in 1965.
“I started writing because it was the only thing I was ever good at,” Ms Pomerantz said in the Alchetron interview.
Her books reflected all sorts of influences, including James Joyce: A Book, “Here Comes Henny” (1994, illustrated by Nancy Winslow Parker), was inspired by a passage in “Finnegans Wake,” said her daughter, Dr. marzani. Mrs. Pomerantz’s son, Daniel, had asthma issues as a child that caused the family to spend the winters in Puerto Rico, and some of her stories were set there or were translated into Spanish.
dr. Marzani said her mother had also once written a play, “Jonah and the Humpback Whale,” and that she recently arranged a performance of it in her Charlottesville apartment building — during high tea on her birthday.
“The group had been practicing for months,” she said, “meeting weekly, with Mom directing from her wheelchair.”
Her mother, she said, had passed out in the days before her death, but the day before her death, the group still performed the piece for her at her bedside. She died a few minutes after midnight on her birthday, but the group also carried out her wish and carried it out again later that day during high tea.
Carl Marzani died in 1994. In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Pomerantz leaves behind her son Daniel Marzani; her domestic partner, Robert Murtha; a stepson, Anthony Marzani; Jason Olivencia, an old relative whom she considered a son and who helped care for the end of her life; a grandson; and two step-grandchildren.