In her early 20s, in one of her first jobs as a copy editor at
a small publishing house, Sydell was unimpressed by the quality of the manuscripts that came across her desk. She told her boss that she could do better. “Prove it,” he said. Soon, Sydell had written a risqué novel, “Strange Circle” under the male pseudonym, Gale Sydney. It was published and sold a decent number of copies. While it would be considered quaint now, for its time, it had a hard-boiled, rather randy style typical of 1950’s pulp fiction. It’s hard to believe this novel was conjured from the imagination a demure young woman.

Sydell wrote original short stories and also translated from the Spanish (her minor at Brooklyn College). But her abiding love was poetry, especially haiku. She was a charter member of the Haiku Society of America, founded in 1968. Through the years, she contributed numerous poems to HSA’s literary journal, Frogpond, as well as many other poetry anthologies.

In the 1970’s, Sydell earned a Master’s Degree in linguistics from Hunter College. In addition to writing poetry and other works, Sydell was a public school teacher and a dedicated instructor of English as a second language who inspired affection from her students.

Married in 1955 to Sam Rosenberg (deceased in 2003), the couple had two children, Amy Losak and Nathan Rosenberg. Sydell died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm on October 11, 1996, leaving a void in the world of poetry and her children, who miss her to this day.