Like her heroine in Suzanne of Love and Art, Elaine Todd Koren was a “woman of a certain age” who defied time and bucked convention. A Renaissance woman, she modeled, acted, and studied art with Moses Soyer, and she became an accomplished painter and writer.

A divorced single mother of two, she worked by day in New York City’s inner-city schools, first as a teacher and then as a guidance counselor, and wrote at night. Her mystical stories about the children she met won awards from the Educational Press Association and the International Labor Press Association. Her first book, Flexible Guidance in the Elementary School (Prentice Hall), was widely used in colleges.

She left education to write full time, publishing articles, contributing to anthologies on art and drama, and writing two novels before beginning Suzanne. For over ten years she researched the life of Suzanne Valadon and the people she touched, in both the United States and France.

Koren and her husband moved from New York City to Woodstock, NY, where she continued to write and paint. She bought a house in the Byrdcliffe Artist Colony, built in 1910 by the artist Bertha Thompson. Her daughter, Dr. Lori Todd, is carrying on her legacy by researching Thompson’s life.

Elaine Koren died peacefully in her bed, next to her husband of 58 years, on October 18, 2020, at the age of 96.