I am a writer who currently lives in Sheffield, Alabama. My mother grew up here. I live about seven blocks south of the bluffs over the beautiful Tennessee River. I grew up in Huntsville, graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977 with a degree in English Literature, and moved as soon as I could north to New York City where, among other things, I danced a lot at Studio 54. I received my law degree from UCLA Law School in 1989, clerked on the Ninth Circuit, and practiced law in Southern California.
In 1995, I moved to Martha’s Vineyard, where I worked as a musician (pianist/keyboardist), and wrote for regional journalism markets, doing local news as well as culture features.
My first husband, Robert Riger, a celebrated sports artist, photographer and film-maker, died May 1995, hence the Vineyard move where he is buried. (His obit is one of my only mentions in the New York Times, I think.) Our daughter, Ariel, is also an artist and writer (her first book, America Redux: Visual Stories from our Dynamic History was published in 2023 and won the Kirkus prize.) Last summer, she moved to Los Angeles (where she grew up) with her wife, Inbal Austern (now a toy designer at Mattel) and my two grandchildren, Daniel and Roane. My son Max lives in the Pacific Northwest where he focuses on his meditation practice and digital art. My youngest child James is a doctor specializing in palliative care medicine. He is on staff at the Ohio State University hospital, as part of their palliative care team. He is working on his Masters in Bioethics.
The main focus of my work these days is to manage my first husband’s artistic trust. That work and my four Great Pyrenees dogs take up most of my time. The big projects involve consolidation, organization and marketing (of the Trust, not dogs; they’re mostly about feeding and walks and getting them to guard me in Alabama so I don’t have to buy a gun), and the promotion of Robert’s legacy.
Thanks for visiting the site! A new Robert page with lots of pics coming here soon to reflect the work we’re doing. Check out other pages that have examples of my published writing. And the blog posts aren’t bad either. 🙂 (I need a new one up, definitely.)
Dawn Aberg 