Alma Denenholz Kaplan (1906 – 1 March 2003) was an American poet and syndicated columnist who wrote under the pseudonym Alma Denny.

Life and career

Denny was born Alma Denenholz in

Far Rockaway Far Rockaway is a neighborhood on the eastern part of the Rockaway peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens. It is the easternmost section of the Rockaways. The neighborhood extends from Beach 32nd Street east to the Nassau County line ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, the eldest of ten children. She received degrees from

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

and

Teachers College, Columbia University Teachers College, Columbia University (TC), is the graduate school of education, health, and psychology of Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Founded in 1887, it has served as one of the official faculties and ...

and married a doctor, Theodore Kaplan, with whom she had two children. Though her husband was adamant that she not work, Denny pursued a career as a freelance writer. Her

light verse Light poetry or light verse is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Light poems are usually brief, can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature word play including puns, adventurous rhyme, and heavy alliteration. Typically, light ...

and vignettes appeared in ''

Good Housekeeping ''Good Housekeeping'' is an American women's magazine featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, and health, as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good House ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', '' Light Quarterly'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...

'', ''

English Today ''English Today'' is an academic journal on the English language, established in 1985 by Tom McArthur (who edited it until 2008) and published quarterly by Cambridge University Press. Its scope covers all aspects of current English and its variet ...

'', ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', '' The Lyric'', and other popular magazines. Her poetry was widely anthologized, appearing in ''The Random House Treasury of Light Verse'' and other collections, and she was the featured poet in the Winter 1998 issue of ''Light Quarterly''. Her first book of poetry, ''Blinkies: Funny Poems to Read in a Blink'', was published in 1991 and was reviewed favourably by columnist

Richard Lederer Richard Lederer (born May 26, 1938) is an American linguist, author, speaker, and teacher. He is best known for his books on the English language and on wordplay such as puns, oxymorons, and anagrams. He has been dubbed "the Wizard of Idiom," ...

. Denny was also a syndicated columnist, penning the weekly advice column "Family Council" which appeared in 40 newspapers in the 1960s. She was later a frequent contributor to ''

''. Denny died in her Manhattan home in March 2003, aged 96. Denny's great-niece is the writer

Dawn Eden Goldstein Dawn Eden Goldstein is an American Roman Catholic author and journalist who was formerly a rock music historian and tabloid newspaper headline writer. Prior to 2016, she used the pen name Dawn Eden. Goldstein was born to a Reform Jewish househo ...

Bibliography

Books

*''Blinkies: Funny Poems to Read in a Blink'' by Alma Denny (Lamb & Lion Studio, 1991, )

In anthologies

*''The Random House Treasury of Light Verse'' by Louis Phillips, editor *''Light Year '87'' by Robert Wallace, editor (Bits Press, 1986, )

References

External links

Alma Mattered: My Great-Aunt's Lessons for Literary Survival
by Dawn Eden {{DEFAULTSORT:Denny, Alma 1906 births 2003 deaths American advice columnists American women columnists 20th-century American poets Writers from Queens, New York Pseudonymous women writers The New York Times writers People from Far Rockaway, Queens American women poets Hunter College alumni Teachers College, Columbia University alumni 20th-century American women writers Poets from New York (state) Jewish American poets American women non-fiction writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women