From Alice's website:
http://aliceshapiro.com/about/

Shapiro is an Aramaic word and refers to the lapis lazuli.  It is reputed to be the stone which represented the tribe of Issachar on the breastplate of the high priest of Israel, and appears in the 11th century Aramaic liturgical poem Akdamus.  The name Alice in Greek means truth.  Well-known Alice’s are Alice Sebold and Alice Walker, both authors.  Well-known Shapiro’s include Karl Shapiro and David Shapiro, both poets.

After losing my job and going homeless, I turned my childhood writing passion into published reality.  While searching for a job online at a homeless shelter I came across a literary agency accepting manuscripts.  My life changed then and there when I decided to turn the copious notes I had accumulated about food trivia into a book.  The manuscript was accepted and published, at a hefty cost.  Sales were minimal and so I decided to stop everything and do what I loved most — write poetry.  I was surprised to learn that traditionally publishing a poetry book was not impossible.  Through a social media connection I found TotalRecall Press.

The greatest benefit from going through this difficult journey, besides a new sense of gratitude, is the ability to see value in the smallest things, because in the end it may be all we have.  Being able to make my life’s work putting words on a blank page is a childhood passion fulfilled — even if it took 50 years.

Alice Shapiro has been writing since 1985 when she studied under William Packard, founder of The New York Quarterly and professor at NYU.  Her poetry credits include a chapbook, Seasons of the Heart with Scars Publications (2007), Silent Actor, New Verse News, Ragazine, The Smoking Poet, and the anthologies Poetry Connoisseur (third prize winner), Antologia del Nuovo Mondo, and Thank You, Gorbachov!  In addition, she has had two plays produced, In The Beginning and Four Voices. 

Her Four Voices is the winner of the Bill C. Davis Drama Award.

Partial proceeds from the sale of books are donated to SHARE House, a crisis center for domestic abuse survivors serving Douglas County, GA.

http://aliceshapiro.com