Herbert Hadad
Herbert Hadad was an award-winning writer with a long and productive career as a reporter, essayist, public relations representative, and speech writer. As a teacher and executive board member of the Hudson Valley Writers Center for more than twenty years, Herb brought his rich experience in the world of language along with his infectious humor and natural ability to teach to his students and to the whole Writers Center community.
Born in Manhattan to Syrian and Jewish parents, his family soon moved to Boston where he was raised and where he received a Bachelor of Science degree from Northeastern University. But Herb said the education that really set the course of his life took place in his early twenties working as a copy boy in the newsroom of The Boston Globe and in the ring moonlighting as a featherweight boxer in dusty gyms across Boston.
Intoxicated with the thrill of writing and covering the news, he would go on to work as a reporter for The New York Times, New York Post, Boston Globe and the Keene Sentinel of New Hampshire. He was the author of two books, Finding Immortality: The Making of One American Family, and Tender and Tough: 60 Years of Storytelling. His freelance work in various genres was published in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Reader’s Digest, Poets and Writers and several anthologies. Many of his stories explore the pleasures and pains of marriage and fatherhood with humor, insight, and uncompromising honesty. He had an observational gift for reflecting on the multitude of life’s little wonders that take place every day, such as the uplifting conversation with a stranger in the park, the pleasure of waving to a passing train, or the investigation of his children’s questions on life. Much of his writing also explored the juxtaposition of his Arab and Jewish heritage.
Early in his career, Herb worked as deputy press secretary for the Edmund Muskie presidential campaign and headed up public relation for a then-fledgling educational children’s TV program called Sesame Street. For the last chapter of his career, Herb proudly served as press officer for the US Department of Justice for the Southern District of New York for six US Attorneys, including James Comey and Preet Bharara.
A fierce and loyal family man, Herb was a founding member of the Friends of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve, a governor emeritus of the Silurians Press Club, a venerable journalism society, and a founder, with his friend Ben Cheever, of the cable television program On Writing. He loved his family, his country, his city, a good martini, and writing. He was proud to be a part of the Hudson Valley Writers Center and impressed by the good work of those who contributed to it and continue its legacy today.