Helen Klein Ross

Helen Klein Ross is a former creative director at top ad agencies in New York who spent over 20 years in the ad business before turning to other kinds of fiction. Her stories, poems and essays have been published by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker. Helen's newest novel, WHAT WAS MINE tells the story of an ordinary woman who takes a baby from a shopping cart and raises her as her own, managing to keep the secret for over two decades—from her daughter, the babysitter who helped raise her, family, coworkers, and friends. The story starts when the secret comes out. Helen's first book, MAKING IT: A NOVEL OF MADISON AVENUE is a coming-of-middle age story about a woman and a business (advertising.) It’s sort of like Mad Men thirty years later, from the point of view of an older, wiser, married Peggy Olson. Order here. Speaking of Mad Men, Helen is the (unofficialized) tweeter for @BettyDraper and several other characters from the show. She’s been a social media enthusiast since 2007 when she created the award-winning blog AdBroad. Helen is also the creator and editor of an anthology of poems with titles taken from a remarkable book printed in 1853, The Traveler's Vade Mecum. Contributors include Frank Bidart, Billy Collins, David Lehman and over 70 others, to be published in 2016 by Red Hen Press.