An independent writer and editor in many different media, Barbara Trainin Blank brings sensitivity, intellectual curiosity, a clear and lively writing style, a love of words, and empathy to every project. She has won praise for presenting complex ideas lucidly and her conscientiousness, as well as for establishing easy rapport with her diverse interview subjects and clients.
An experienced journalist who began her career at Cosmopolitan magazine, Trainin Blank has been a regular contributor or contributing writer to such print and Web editions of local, regional, and national publications as The Beacon, B'nai B'rith magazine, Bride, The Burg, Business2Business, Business Woman, The Carlisle Sentinel, The Forward, Health, Hadassah, Emergency Medicine and Transition magazines (of formerly Fischer Medical Publications), Harrisburg magazine, Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, The New Social Worker, Patriot-News, and Washington Jewish Week. She has written for such Web sites as: culturespotMC.com. com, Maryland Theatre Guide; citytowninfo.com, addiction.com, and humanthology.com.
Trainin Blank has contributed essays to two anthologies: Surviving Mental Illness Through Humor (Bear House Publishing, 2015) and Reclaiming Our Voices: Benefitting Survivors of Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault (Community Arts Ink, 2015).
A participant in National Novel Writing Month, she has written four not-yet-published novels. Trainin Blank researched and penned the entry about Harrisburg, Pa., in The Encyclopedia Judaica edition released in December 2006 and contributed to the Hadassah Magazine Jewish Parenting Book, 1989.
She has worked collaboratively with such firms as Editorial Enterprises, Inc., Sand Associates, and PR Works, Inc., in Harrisburg, Pa., and has written promotional materials -- such as press releases, brochures, and newsletters -- for such nonprofits as Hershey Medical Center, UJA-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, the Jewish Home of Greater Harrisburg, and the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York.
Trainin Blank has brainstormed needs, researched funding opportunities, and written grant proposals for nonprofits seeking funding. As s part-time grant writer, she helped solicit a $1,000,000 grant from Baltimore's Weinberg Foundation for the Jewish Federation of Greater Harrisburg to renovate the JCC on its campus.
Since 2009, Trainin Blank has edited or proofread several academic studies annually for the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. In addition, she copyedited George C. Marshall: Rubrics of Leadership, Stewart Husted (Army War College Foundation Press) and Michael Sand's Marketing Religious Organizations. She edited several books for Mary V. Knackstedt, interior designer, including The Interior Design Handbook and Marketing and Client Relations for Interior Designers, and informational and marketing materials, and Laura Starke's Being the Change, about grass-roots leadership.
Trainin Blank is the winner of two Rockower Awards for journalism, a literary award for non-fiction, and an "Addy" for a special newspaper section (about drug addiction) she created for the daily Montgomery Advertiser-Alabama Journal.
Several of Trainin Blank's short plays have been workshopped or given staged readings at theaters including: Theatre Ariel, Open Stage of Harrisburg, Theatre Harrisburg, Little Theatre of Mechanicsburg, Hershey Area Playhouse, Cicada Festival, Lebanon Valley College, Association of Jewish Theatre annual conference, Carlisle Theatre, Jewish Women's Theatre, Jewish Writer's Roundtable, and Theatre Ariel. She created, with composer Lindy Mack, two full-length children's musicals for Gretna Theatre, a professional venue, in 2011 and 2012.
Her How to Marry the Rabbi saw two staged readings and appears in Art Age Senior Theatre Catalog. She received Honorable Mention in the New Works for Merit competition (2015) in New York City for her Stolen Vows. Her Will's Women was presented in a festival focusing on Shakespeare's female characters at Gamut Theatre, a professional venue.
She is a member of the Alliance of Jewish Theatre, Official Playwrights of Facebook; Maryland Writers' Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; and an honorary member of Playwrights Alliance of Pennsylvania.
Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.