Helen-Chantal Pike

While working on a memoir about my dad ~ My Father's Only Daughter ~ a new project came along that lured me out of Fordham University-Lincoln Center and put me back on the street as a journalist and photographer. It also put me into the night clubs and churches of the seaside city that is my archaeological dig site for American culture, Asbury Park.

In September 2010 I was chosen editor of an anthology titled Asbury Park: Where Music Lives. It is now available for purchase: www.AsburyParkMusic.org. This is my third book resurrecting a city many have left for dead. Asbury Park's Glory Days: The Story of an American Resort was my second book, published by Rutgers Unviersity Press in 2005: www.rutgerspress.edu. My initial effort to recreate Asbury Park, street by street, came out in 1997: Image of America: Asbury Park: www.arcadiapublishing.com

As a writing coach, I meet privately with clients who want to turn their oral stories into written prose as a permanent record of their life experiences. I also edit the manuscripts of those who aspire to get published.

A graduate of both public and private schools, I received a B.A. degree in English and French from Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, a language certificate from La Sorbonne in Paris, and a M.S. in journalism from Columbia University-New York.

In the tug-of-war between my French mother and Yankee father to name me, a hyphenated first name resulted: Helen-Chantal.