<p>Mark Judelson has been writing since his high school days in New Haven, when he once skipped classes for two weeks and justified it to his parents by announcing he was writing a book.</p>
<p>His parents' first reaction was uncontrolled laughter, he says. He was a white student at a largely black inner-city school at the end of the 1960s. His hometown was experiencing race riots, and Black Panther Bobby Seale was on trial there. Judelson had a story to tell, and after two years of work and revision, his book about his experiences was published. Although he went on to study forestry, he's been putting words on paper ever since. After spending time in Africa, where storytelling is the medium of the masses, he's pursued that art form while working as executive director of the Arts Council of Rockland.</p>