A novelist, poet, screenwriter, and educator, Heidi believes that good stories should challenge, entertain, and occasionally misbehave. Through Smart House Books she has championed literary fiction, poetry, and emerging writers while continuing to build her own body of work.

Heidi is the author of The Glass Eye Trilogy, including Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack, a LoanStars Top Ten selection and Foreword Reviews Literary Book of the Year finalist, and The Lost Queen, praised by readers and critics alike for its blend of history, mystery, and magic realism. Her earlier novel, They Don't Run Red Trains Anymore, received the H.R. Percy Prize, and her poetry collection ERATO was published by Zephyr Press. As a screenwriter, she has adapted novels for film and television and continues to develop projects for both page and screen.

When not feeling particularly bookish, Heidi can occasionally be found in front of a camera. Over a career spanning more than sixty film and television productions, she has appeared in such projects as My Animal, Bordello, Body in the Trunk, Take the Lead, and Land of the Dead, though she is still most often remembered as the woman caught between Jeremy Irons' twin gynecologists in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers.

Whether publishing books, writing novels, teaching young writers, or chasing the next impossible creative idea, Heidi remains committed to stories that linger long after the final page.

 

With a passion for literary fiction, our founder, Heidi von Palleske, oversees the editorial process at Smart House Books, ensuring every manuscript meets our high standards.