Erika Dreifus

• Avner Landes’s new novel Meiselman: The Lean Years was already on my tbr list; Sara Lippmann’s interview with the author for Hevria has only heightened my interest.
• Discovered this week (via a post one of my academic listservs): The Tel Aviv Review of Books pays NIS .5 per word, with essays “usually between 1500 and 3000 words in length.” NB: “Please note that there has to be some kind of direct Israel angle to the idea.” 
• For this year’s Emma Lazarus Statue of Liberty Poetry Contest, the American Jewish Historical Society invites submissions of poems that “should explore both the stories ‘The New Colossus’ invites, and those to which it may have blinded us too as well. Poems should, together with the Statue of Liberty, should send a message to the world about America.” Entries are welcome in multiple student/youth categories and in a “collegiate/adult emerging poet” group. “Winners in each category will receive a cash prize of $1,000 and be featured in an upcoming AJHS Film and publication.” Deadline: July 22, 2021. (As always, read the terms and conditions before entering the competition.)
• “Indie publisher Green Bean Books and Jewish Book Week are launching two book prizes celebrating Jewish values for children’s authors and illustrators living in the UK, Europe including Russia, and Israel. The awards have been established to discover inspiring and relevant stories for young children based on Jewish history, values and traditions. Submissions are now open and close at noon on 1st September 2021. One author and one illustrator will each receive a £1,000 prize and their work will be considered for publication by specialist Jewish children’s book publisher Green Bean Books, based in Finchley, north London, which launched last year.” (Article via The Bookseller.)
• And this excerpt from Judy Batalion’s new book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos, took up some prime real estate in last Sunday’s New York Times.

Wishing everyone a Shabbat shalom and a very happy, meaningful Passover!