The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning at Temple Emanu-El in New York has published its Fall 2008 Course Guide, and it includes a number of literary offerings I wanted to note here:
–”What’s Wrong With Our Children?” Parents and Children in Jewish Short Stories (Anne Roiphe)
–Six Decades of Israeli Literature (Basmat Hazan Arnoff)
–Writers’ Beit Midrash: Creative Non-Fiction (Shelly R. Fredman)
For more information, including dates and fees, visit www.adultjewishlearning.org.
Received an e-mail a few days ago about an event that may interest those of you in the Boston area. On September 25, JBooks & JVibe will present Get Lit 2008, billed as “a literary event for the whole mishpucha.” Get Lit will take place at the Union Street Restaurant in Newton, and will feature Jon Papernick, Tova Mirvis, and the father-son pair of Jonathan and Adam Wilson. More information here.
Finally had the chance to read through the latest issue of Lilith magazine. My favorite piece in this issue has to be “Anzia Yezierska and Me,” by Patricia Averbach. As a teenager, Averbach was hired to be Yezierska’s “literary assistant.” An unusual experience, to be sure, and one that Averbach’s family was frankly not all that happy about: “‘What kind of real writer needs a high school kid as a literary assistant?’ my mother asked. She was cooking dinner and didn’t look up. ‘Maybe she wrote some books, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want you locked up with some old lady. If she’s looking for company, let her hire a nurse.’” The essay isn’t (yet?) online, but hopefully at some point it will be.
I’ve just discovered The Book of Life, whose tagline reads “a podcast about Jewish people and the books we read.” I have to admit that I still haven’t fallen completely in love with podcasts, but the blog itself seems well worth reading, with lots of references to Jewish books, writers, and publishers. Host Heidi Estrin directs the library at Congregation B’nai Israel in Boca Raton, Florida, and participates in a number of Jewish book organizations/activities. This is a welcome addition to my link list.
I’ve just received the New Yorker‘s summer fiction issue, and while I have yet to read the issue’s fiction proper, I have managed to make my way already through some of its nonfiction essays penned by fiction writers. In this issue, those essays are grouped around the theme of “Faith and Doubt.”
And they include a piece by Allegra Goodman, which begins as follows: “As a young girl, I spent more time outside synagogues than in them. Services were long, and I always found some excuse to get away.” Read the rest here.
Erika Dreifus lives and writes in New York City. Her story collection, Quiet Americans, was published in January 2011 by Last Light Studio Books. Erika is a contributing editor for The Writer magazine and Fiction Writers Review and an advisory board member for J Journal: New Writing on Justice, and she wrote the section on “Choosing a Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing” for the second edition of Tom Kealey’s Creative Writing MFA Handbook (Continuum, 2008). Erika’s writing practice encompasses fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Erika is also the editor/publisher of The Practicing Writer, a free (and popular) e-newsletter featuring advice, opportunities, and resources on the craft and business of writing for fictionists, poets, and writers of creative nonfiction.
Practicing Writing RSS FeedSubscribe to Practicing Writing via email
My Machberet RSS FeedSubscribe to My Machberet via email