Erika Dreifus

Three quick updates from my desk.

1. Congratulations to the winners of the Valiant Scribe Poetry Contest. I’m not among you, or among the honorable mentions—but my poem “Fighting Words” (originally published by The Hollins Critic before making its way to Birthright), was, I learned a few days ago, “shortlisted,” and will be included in an upcoming anthology. So that was nice to find out.
2. Flash fiction updates. Alas, the news is not quite so encouraging for the poor flash story that I’m trying to place. Rejections accrue (two arrived just on Monday!). But an invitation to participate in this online reading, with a stipulated time limit, has compelled me to create an even shorter (flashier?) version of the story, and I’ve just begun sending that version out. Also: I’ve just signed up for Nancy Stohlman’s (free!) Flash Nano Challenge (which will coincide with NaNoWriMo in November). Do I truly expect myself to write 30 flash stories in 30 days? I do not. But if I get even the beginning of ONE story out of it, I’ll be happy.
3. And icymi: My latest byline appeared last week on JTA. (For those who may not be familiar with JTA—the letters stand for “Jewish Telegraphic Agency”—it’s a longstanding [since 1917] “global source of news and analysis on issues of Jewish interest and concern.”) The new piece is an essay/op-ed/book review hybrid that fuses my ever-increasing immersion in Jewish kidlit with some longstanding concerns that became timely to share last week. Thanks to JTA’s syndication clients, it’s been appearing in numerous additional venues, which is pretty cool. (Special thanks to everyone who has offered encouragement and/or amplification for this piece—I know that the choice to do so hasn’t necessarily been easy.)