Essays & Articles

On this page, you’ll find titles of (and some links to) an array of my nonfiction writing. Over time, I hope to add online versions of some materials that are currently available only in print (or as printouts in my personal archives). For a selected list of my published book reviews, please visit this page.

• “Among the Literati,” Jewish Ideas Daily, January 2012.
• “7 Reasons This Writer May Unfollow You on Twitter,” Writermag.com, December 2011 (free site registration required)
• “What’s in a Title?” CenterforFiction.org, July 2011.
• “Looking Backward: Third-Generation Fiction Writers and the Holocaust,” Fiction Writers Review, April 2011.
• “The Twin Towers: A Personal History in Four Parts,” Quay 2.2 (July-December 2008).
• “Choosing a Low-Residency Program in Creative Writing,” in Tom Kealey, ed., The Creative Writing MFA Handbook, rev. ed. (New York: Continuum, 2008). ISBN 978-0-8264-2886-8.
• “The Skin Thickens,” ByLine, July 2007.
• “A Room of Anzia Yezierska’s Own,” JBooks.com, May 2007.
• “Introduction,” The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal, trans. Lady Mary Lloyd (New York: Barnes and Noble Publishing, 2006), vii-xii. ISBN 13: 978-0-7607-7765-7.
• “Ever After? History, Healing, and ‘Holocaust Fiction’ in the Third Generation,” in Beyond Camps and Forced Labour: Current International Research on Survivors of Nazi Persecution, edited by Johannes-Dieter Steiner and Inge Weber-Newth (Osnabrück: Secolo Verlag, 2005), 524-30. ISBN 3-929979-73-X. (Revised version of paper presented at “Beyond Camps and Forced Labour” conference at the Imperial War Museum, London, 29-31 January 2003.)
• “Writing on the Job: Not for Writers Only,” Harvard Community Resource, September 2004. (Reprinted in a revised version as “All the Write Stuff,” Community College Week, April 25, 2005.)
• “Continuing Education,” Threshold: Passages from Prague (Prague Summer Press, 2004).
• “In Praise of Polyglossia,” Matrix 66 (Spring 2004).
• “Pushing the Limits of ‘Writing What You Know,’” The Willamette Writer, May 2004. (Revised version of a paper presented at the “Limits of the Past: The Human Sciences and the Turn to Memory” conference at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., April 2002.)
• “Keeping Silent? Writing Fiction After September 11,” Queen’s Quarterly 111(1): Spring 2004, 35-43. (Revised version of a paper presented at the “Why Write?” conference held at Columbia University in New York City, 28-29 May 2003; republished by Numéro Cinq in 2011.)
• “A Focus on James’s ‘Surrounding Scene’: Examining the Place of Paris in The Ambassadors,” Henry James Review 25.1 (2004): 44-51. (Revised version of a presentation delivered at the “Henry James Today” conference in Paris, July 6, 2002.)
• “A Manual for the Auntie-to-Be,” Jewish Journal, April 9, 2004.
• “Grammar and Mechanics: The Time Is Now,” Community College Week, February 2, 2004.
• “‘Yeats Summer Camp,’ Or What I Did Over My Summer Vacation,” Literary Traveler, Fall 2003.
• “Staying Jewish in America” (essay on Ludwig Lewisohn’s The Island Within), JBooks.com, 2003, n.p.
• “Letters to a Young Writer”/”Why I Write,” Teachers & Writers, May-June 2003.
• “Closing Shop: The Last Writing Class,” Kansas English 88.1 (Spring 2003): 79-81. (Reprinted in a revised version as “A Fine Finish” in Community College Week, May 24, 2004.)
• “Common Ground: Crafting ‘Fact’ and ‘Fiction,’” Arizona English Bulletin 45.1 (Spring 2003): 34-37.
• “Making a Living, Making a Life: A Workshop in Character Development,” Oregon English Journal 24.1 (Spring 2002): 27-29. (Reprinted in a revised version as “Working Men and Women: Characters and Their Development,” on the AWP eLink as a web-exclusive.)
• “A ‘Golden Prison’ in Pennsylvania: The Hotel Hershey, 1942-43,” Pennsylvania History 69 (2002): 429-35.
• “Passport from the Past,” Boston Sunday Globe, August 24, 1997.
• “The Big Chill,” Child, May-June 1987.