Ivy Meeropol

Ivy Meeropol is a producer and director of documentary films and television series, a screenwriter, a journalist, and a writer of fiction. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and Oxford University, and worked, in her twenties, as a speechwriter and legislative aide for U.S. Congressman Harry Johnston, handling such issues as education, children, the judiciary, women, immigration, Haiti/Cuba, crime, drugs, and welfare.

In 2007, she directed and produced The Hill, a show that Variety called "a slickly produced and irresistibly engrossing docu-series." This six-part series about Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) and his staff, premiered in August 2006 on the Sundance Channel to critical acclaim, and was an International Documentary Association nominee for best series. Also in 2007, Meeropol directed the feature-length documentary All About Abe, the story of Abe Pollin, and a companion short film about the creation of the Verizon Center arena in Washington, DC.

In 2003, Meeropol directed and produced Heir to An Execution, a documentary film about the legacy of her grandparents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Heir to An Execution premiered in the Documentary Competition of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, was shortlisted for an Academy Award, aired on HBO, and has been screened at festivals around the world. Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times, called Heir to An Execution "An exceptional documentary ... a compelling emotional narrative laced with explosive political material."

Meeropol's screenplays include Against the Wind, with award-winning writer-director Allison Anders, and the screen adaptation of Dawn Powell's The Happy Island, with Mark Campbell. She has published articles in The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, Premiere, Nest, Paper, and Black Book Magazine. She was also fiction editor and a contributor to Provincetown Arts Magazine. Her essay "How I See It" was included in The May Queen, an anthology published in 2006 by Tarcher/Penguin.

Meeropol lives in Cold Spring, NY, with her husband and son. She will be joined at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar by her father, Michael Meeropol.

Links:

NYTimes review of "Heir to an Execution"
CNN.com profile