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Words of the Week: Matthew Weiner

by Erika Dreifus on
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“The driving question for the [Mad Men] series is, Who are we? When we talk about ‘we,’ who is that? In the pilot, Pete Campbell has this line, ‘Adding money and education doesn’t take the rude edge out of people.’ Sophisticated anti-Semitism. I overheard that line when I was a schoolteacher. The person, of course, didn’t know they were in the presence of a Jew. I was a ghost. Certain male artists like to show that they’re feminists as a way to get girls. That’s always seemed pimpy to me. I sympathize with feminism the same way I identify with gay people and with people of color, because I know what it’s like to look over the side of the fence and then to climb over the fence and to feel like you don’t belong, or be reminded at the worst moment that you don’t belong.”

Source: Matthew Weiner, quoted in “The Art of Screenwriting No. 4,” The Paris Review.

Jewish Literary Links

by Erika Dreifus on
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Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
Every Friday before Shabbat, My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety. I plan to be offline for the next several days, but I’ve already found too many great links to skip this week’s post altogether. Enjoy what I’ve found, Shabbat Shalom, and see you next week!

  • Can’t wait to really dig into this series on the future of Jewish theater. (h/t Mosaic magazine)
  • Cynthia Ozick writes brilliantly on Bernard Malamud. Also worth your time: Mark Athitakis on the same.
  • Moment magazine presents Lauren Watel’s utterly affecting short story, “The Nothing of History.”
  • The Book of Life hosts the March Jewish Book Carnival.
  • This Sunday in NYC: “Jewish Poetry Now: A Reading and Discussion Celebrating The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry,” (free event).

    • Monday Markets for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
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    Monday brings the weekly batch of no-fee competitions/contests, paying submission calls, and jobs for those of us who write (especially those of us who write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction).

  • Attention, Minnesotans! “The Minnesota Emerging Writers’ Grant provides writers with financial support and professional assistance to develop and implement multifaceted plans for their artistic endeavors. Winners will be selected to receive grants of up to $10,000 to underwrite projects of their own design. The total amount that can be awarded is $38,000. The total number of winners will be dependent on the requests. Typically, four writers are awarded grants.” No application fee indicated. Deadline: March 28, 2014.
  • New opportunity! A Public Space (APS) Emerging Writer Fellowships will provide three U.S.-based writers with mentorships, publication in A Public Space, stipends of $1,000, and free workspace in the APS Brooklyn offices. “Please note that applicants from all across the United Stats are encouraged to apply for these fellowships, and that the residency in our offices is an optional element.” They’re looking for writers “who have not yet published or been contracted to write a book-length work, but whose writing shows exceptional promise.” Appears to be a program for fiction and nonfiction writers only. No application fee. Deadline: April 15, 2014. (via @daniellevalore)

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    Words of the Week: Cynthia Ozick

    by Erika Dreifus on
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    ozick1“The subject is vile and searing and omnipresent, but one cannot address it in a 15-minute interview; or, in fact, in an interview of any length; nor, indeed, can one have the heart just now to address it in any superficial form or forum at all. Jews and the Jewish state are once again under siege everywhere: by the United Nations, world headquarters of anti-Semitism; by, it goes without saying, the religious leaders of Islam and their constituents; by the European Union; by the Obama/Kerry vise, including the appeasement of Iran, a regime sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, to which the West is by its silence wholly indifferent; by the so-called Human Rights movement; by the BDS assaults; by, in America, our own innocently deluded voting pattern; by, in America, our distancing from and growing indifference to the State of Israel; by, in America, our ignorance, our triviality, and our lack of any historical sense; and by much, much, much more.”

    Cynthia Ozick, in “Anti-Semitism: Where Does It Come From & Why Does It Persist?”, a free e-book from Moment magazine. (You don’t need to agree with Ozick’s every point to admit awe with the writing here. And you’ll find more than three dozen individual perspectives within the e-book itself.)