Erika Dreifus

Three quick things:

1. New poem alert! I’m delighted that “Miriam, Quarantined,” appears on the marvelous 929 website today. 929 describes itself as calling on us “to rediscover the riches of the bestselling book in history”—that book being the Hebrew Tanakh (Bible). The site devotes itself to one chapter each day; today the focus is on Numbers 12, which is where my poem is grounded.

2. Meantime, congratulations are in order for Leon Wiener Dow, whose The Going: A Meditation on Jewish Law I helped publicize when it appeared late last year. The Going has just won a National Jewish Book Award! Mazal tov! (And congratulations to all of the NJBA winners and finalists!)

3. What I’m reading now: I promised myself that the first novel I’d take up in 2019 would be Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers, and I’ve kept that promise! I’m on p. 285, reading a little more each night, wanting to know how both of the storylines (one set in the 1980s, one more contemporary) turn out, but also not wanting the book to end. (I remain really proud/honored to have interviewed Rebecca for The Practicing Writer way back when her first novel was published.)