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Bio: Gerry Gomez Pearlberg

I have been a self-employed writer, editor, and project manager since 1992. In that time, I’ve developed hundreds of communications and fundraising materials for dozens of clients. I consider it a privilege to use my skills to advance causes I believe in and to promote agencies and initiatives I admire.

My work experiences and fields of expertise are wide-ranging. Before going freelance, I worked at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In my first job there, I created HIV prevention materials for diverse audiences. Later, as Coordinator of Funding Initiatives, I wrote grant proposals and reports to the department’s federal and state funders. I also reviewed applications from local organizations seeking health department funding. These experiences taught me a great deal about what it takes to create potent communications materials and winning grant proposals.

In 1987, prior to joining the Health Department, I founded and directed the Women’s Centers and AIDS Project, one of the nation’s first HIV education projects targeting women. During that time, I wrote a pioneering book entitled Women, AIDS, and Communities: A Guide for Action. I’ve also worked in the publishing industry, been a hotline counselor for domestic violence survivors and runaway youth, and served as Curriculum Development Specialist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

My “other life” as a poet also bears mention because—strange as it may seem—this experience has strongly informed my professional writing career. I’ve written two award-winning volumes of poetry, edited three well-received poetry anthologies, and published poems and cultural criticism in dozens of literary magazines and anthologies. I’ve also taught poetry in many settings, including AIDS Service Center NYC, where I run a popular creative writing workshop that has met weekly since 2000.

Poetry is the art of distilling language to maximize meaning. It is a joyous, rigorous discipline that requires deep attention to language: its power, potential, and value. I abide by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s deceptively simple tenet that the art of poetry resides in placing “the right words in the right order”—and I apply this principle to all of my writing, whether the material at hand is a funding proposal, a newsletter article, a website, or a sonnet. This approach has won me a reputation for excellence and many loyal clients.

Like all artisans, I take pride in my work—and this comes across in the quality of every document that leaves my desk. That’s the merit of my work and the meaning of “Artisanal Prose.”