Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen

Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish literary news from around the Web.

  • Let’s begin: It took me a few days to catch up and read it, but Tablet magazine has published its first original work of short fiction, a story by Aimee Bender titled “The Doctor and the Rabbi.” Read it, and then see what Zackary Sholem Berger has to say about it.
  • You may remember that Sigmund Freud left Vienna in 1938. His sisters weren’t so lucky. The Forward reviews a novel that imagines the story of one of them.
  • Praise from Mark Athitakis for The Book of Mischief, “a magisterial collection of 17 short stories by Steve Stern that encompasses his three-decade career.”
  • This week brought us the latest Jewish Book Carnival, hosted for the first time by the Bagels, Books, and Schmooze blog (and including a giveaway).
  • Finally, I’m proud to announce that I’ll be participating in the JCC Lane Dworkin Jewish Book Festival in Rochester this fall. My event is scheduled for November 11, but I encourage you to take a look at all of the festival offerings this 20th anniversary season.

    • Shabbat shalom.

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish literary news from around the Web.

  • First up: You still have a few days to enter a giveaway and (maybe) win a copy of Yuvi Zalkow’s A Brilliant Novel in the Works.
  • Next: This week saw the publication of Shani Boianjiu’s The People of Forever Are Not Afraid. Check out the thoughtful review up on the Jewish Book Council website. (And if you’re wondering why Boianjiu, an Israeli, wrote her debut book in English, here’s your answer.)
  • This week also brought us “Return to Fulda,” a beautiful essay by Kenneth R. Weinstein.
  • Exciting news about a new international Jewish artist retreat. And on a related note: Mazel Tov to the new LABA Artist Fellows.
  • In case you missed it: On my other blog, there’s an announcement about my first book review for the Jewish Review of Books.
  • New Yorkers: Mark your calendars for December 6, when the CUNY Graduate Center will host “Contemporary Jewish-American Writing: What Has Changed?” – an event featuring Edith Pearlman, Mikhal Dekel, Nancy K. Miller, and Judith Shulevitz

    • Shabbat shalom (and l’shanah tovah).

    Advice for Jewish Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    11

    I receive a lot of email. Increasingly, many of these incoming messages are from writers whose work – fiction, poetry, or nonfiction – features Jewish themes or subjects. Frequently, these writers are asking varieties of the same question: Who will publish my work?

    Unfortunately, I’m not currently offering coaching or consulting services (if and when that situation changes, I’ll be sure to let you all know!), and I simply do not have the time to provide each correspondent with individualized advice. My hope is that this website – offering generalized resources for writers, information curated specifically for those of us who write on Jewish subjects, archived author interviews  (including a number of self-identified “Jewish writers”), frequent blog posts, and The Practicing Writer newsletter – can assist a large readership-that-writes.

    But some questions are coming up so often that I’m inspired to offer some more targeted advice, publicly. (more…)

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    1

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish literary news from around the Web.

  • First: This week brought the release of an English translation of a newly discovered poem, “Hora to an Exiled Girl,” by Hannah Senesh.
  • Next up: Michael Chabon’s latest novel, Telegraph Avenue, will be released next week. Reviewer Diane Cole describes it as a “lively portrait of a community where blacks and whites, Jews and Christians, politicians of every party, all manage to overcome their own latent (and sometimes blatant) prejudices to settle conflicts, both personal and public, and live peacefully together.”
  • And if you’re looking for some more fall books on Jewish themes, this preview should help you find a few.
  • As The New York Times notes, Philip Roth has a new biographer.
  • A college student whose grandmother survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest reflects on “generational memory” of the Holocaust and her writing. (I can’t help thinking that, as is being reported, not everyone in the third generation may be “traumatized” by their grandparents’ histories. But there sure are increasing numbers of us writing about it these days.)
  • And if you missed it on my other blog, a couple of days ago I shared some thoughts about (and examples of) “Bat Mitzvah poetry”–plus a family photo.

    • Shabbat shalom.