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SHELLEY
L. ACKERMAN
Shelley
Ackerman was born on October 14 @ 5:10 a.m. in New York. A Libra
with Libra rising, she grew up Manhattan's Lower East Side (now
known as The East Village). After graduating from The High School
of Music and Art with honors at age 16, she began performing as
a singing waitress at the world-famous Improvisation Comedy Club.
At the Improv and other Manhattan clubs she worked with talents
such as Peter Allen, Pat Benatar, Elayne Boosler, Richard Lewis,
Bill Maher, Jay Leno, Andy Kaufman, Freddie Prinze, Rodney Dangerfield,
Robert Klein and Jimmie Walker, before headlining her own shows
at New York's top cabarets. In 1988, Shelley starred in the 20th
anniversary production of "Jacques Brel" at Town Hall
in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. In 1990,
she won the Backstage Bistro Award for best female vocalist in that
cabaret season.
As Shelley immersed herself in pursuing work in television and film,
she also became acutely aware of unplanned and unsettling changes
taking place within her. Always drawn to the occult, and with a
quest for insights into the deeper meaning and purpose of life,
she sought answers from unconventional sources. In the mid-1980s,
she discovered that she had a natural and quite extraordinary ability
to interpret astrological charts. (Shelley read hundreds of astrological
books and took many classes during her years as a celebrated cabaret
performer, but never took it seriously). Despite her initial resistance
toward giving that ability a larger place in her life, destiny intervened,
and in the summer of 1992 she found herself in Montauk, New York,
ensconced as the house astrologer at Gurney's, with the very people
she used to audition for now lined up at her table for readings.
Also in that summer of 1992, Shelley obtained then-presidential-candidate
Bill Clinton's birth time from his mother and was able to cast the
first accurate horoscope for the 42nd President. During his administration,
she has found herself cast in the role of political commentator
and a frequent guest on talk shows nationwide.
As a professional astrologer, Shelley has advised politicians, entertainers,
writers, educators, and people from all walks of life. She has appeared
on Fox Cable News Network's hit morning show "Fox and Friends",
The O'Reilly Factor, CNN, the BBC, NBC's "Extra", ABC
Overnight World News, CBS Evening News, Eyewitness News, and on
over one thousand radio shows. She is a regular guest on Sirius
Satellite Radio, WOR 710 New York, WGEE in Green Bay, Wisconsin,
KROQ in Los Angeles, and KTRS in St. Louis and has been heard in
the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. She has
written for The New York Daily News, The NY Post, New Woman Magazine,
and writes an astrology column for Beliefnet.com.
Shelley teaches her course "The Art of Astrology for Inspired
Students and Creative Professionals" at The New York Theosophical
Society, currently in its seventh year.
She has taught at Skidmore College through The International Women's
Writing Guild. The class: "How Your Astrological Chart Reveals
What You Must Write About and Why".
In 1996 Shelley became the President of the New York affiliate of
the American Federation of Astrologers. In December of that year,
her show "Karmic Relief™" debuted on radio in New
York. A partial list of her guests includes: James Redfield (The
Celestine Prophecy), Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way), Barbara Brennan
(Hands of Light), Betty Eadie, James Van Praagh, Bill Maher, Ben
& Jerry, Lorna Luft (Me and My Shadows: a Family Memoir), Gordon
Michael Scallion, Barbara Marciniak (Bringers of the Dawn), Chris
Griscom (The Healing of Emotion), James Rado (playwright, "Hair"),
and Debbie Frank (astrologer to the late Princess Diana).
Shelley is currently at work on her first book about creativity
and the horoscope.
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