Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat
Shabbat shalom!
(Photo by Reut Miryam Cohen.)
Shabbat shalom!
(Photo by Reut Miryam Cohen.)
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have caught my delighted announcement last Saturday about a just-accepted essay. In fact, last week was pretty remarkable, because I received two essay acceptances. But the Saturday acceptance was notable for a couple of reasons.
First, that acceptance came after the same piece (or some iterations of it) had been rejected several times. Nowhere near as many rejections as some of my short stories have suffered on their way to publication–but still, finding this piece a home was by no means a super-smooth (or super-swift) process. By the time this essay is published, nearly one year will have elapsed since I began sending it out.
Second, the accepted piece exemplifies something that seems increasingly integral to my writing practice: the micro-essay (also known as flash nonfiction). I have two other new micro-essays circulating right now (yes, one of them developed from the poetry exercise I mentioned not long ago). If you add up the word counts of the three pieces–the one that was just accepted and the two newer ones–you don’t even reach 1500 words.
I’m only beginning to understand how and why this focus is developing for me. Which is why I was thrilled to discover “Focusing on Flash Nonfiction: An Interview with Dinty W. Moore” on the River Teeth blog this week. Among Moore’s many hats is the editorship of Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction.
In addition to sharing his expert take on crafting flash nonfiction, Moore recommends some journals that feature this type of writing. Which reminded me of two other places where one may find potential homes for micro-essays: Pamelyn Casto’s newsletter and The Review Review‘s flash fiction resource list (also useful for flash nonfiction).
I suspect that I’ll be continuing to look for nice homes for flash nonfiction (not to mention additional places to read good examples of it), so if you have other suggestions–either for resource lists or specific venues–please share! Maybe we can come up with the “Ultimate List of Magazines & Journals That Publish Flash Nonfiction & Micro-Essays.”
The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles–the largest Jewish weekly outside New York City–has named Quiet Americans a “notable book of 2011.” To say that I am honored is an extreme understatement. I am frankly overwhelmed to find my book in the company of the other “notable” works by Gershom Gorenberg, Hirsh Goodman, James Carroll, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Art Spiegelman, Joseph Braude, Michael Levy, and Deborah E. Lipstadt.
In explaining the choice of Quiet Americans, Books Editor Jonathan Kirsch writes:
History, as James Joyce once wrote, is a nightmare from which we struggle to awaken. But literary journalist Erika Dreifus is courageous enough to confront the terrors from deep within that nightmare in her debut work of fiction, “Quiet Americans” (Last Light Studio: $13.95), a deeply affecting collection of short stories that contemplate how the long shadow of the Holocaust falls across the lives of men and women who come alive in her work. She works in a lapidary prose, every word considered and chosen with care, and yet the writing is always clear and compelling. But Dreifus does not confine herself to the kind of character studies and slice-of-life sketches that are the stock-in-trade of so many short-story writers. Rather, she cares deeply about history — her own family history and the larger history that we all inhabit — and that’s what makes her stories both engaging and consequential.
In addition to the notable books article, The Jewish Journal has also announced the winner of the first Jewish Journal Book Prize: Nancy K. Miller’s What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past. Read more about that book–and The Jewish Journal‘s literary coverage, right here.
“Because Judt’s fearless opinions are expressed so pointedly and with such passion, it’s unlikely readers will ever find themselves in total agreement with him. But whether one adopts or rejects his worldview, this invigorating dialogue grants us the privilege of encountering a fertile mind in all its vibrancy, gone far too soon.”
Source: Harvey Freedenberg’s Shelf Awareness review of Thinking the Twentieth Century, by Tony Judt with Timothy Snyder. I’m grateful to Harvey helping me articulate some of my own complicated feelings about Judt and his work, which I first encountered (and admired) as a student of European history, but later shrank from when it came to Judt’s take on Israel.